Although there’s still old snow in the shady areas, most of the yard and animal pens are looking end-of-winterish. There’s mud. There’s manure to rake up and dog messes that hid in the snow all winter that I need to pick up. Not a very attractive description – but, with the sun out and the weather in the 50’s, there’s a hit of green, which makes it beautiful.

It was a perfect day for a clean-up. While I mucked out the goats’ stalls and raked their yard, the hens had an outing. Here are Lulu and Buffy multi-tasking. They’re dust bathing and pecking for bugs at the same time.

Candy had a romp in the goats’ yard, and had a snack on mint shoots.

Meanwhile, the goats got in the way. They also got in the compost pile where I was dumping their old bedding. Hay that they had rejected in their stall, becomes appealing when it is somewhere they’re not usually allowed.

After giving the goats all new shavings and fluffing their hay, I did a spring cleaning in the HenCam coop. Cobwebs were brushed off the ceiling, the floor swept, even behind the food bins, and a messy catch-all shelf was cleared off and dusted. When I started sneezing and couldn’t stop, I decided that I’d done enough.

After showering and putting on animal hair and dust-free clothes, I decided to check my email. Just to take one more look at my hard work, I clicked on goatcam. What a sweet picture. There were Pip and Caper, lying down in their clean bedding, chewing their cuds. Then Caper tried to stand up. But, somehow, he was under the water bucket. He stood up anyway. The bucket tipped and the water poured out. I saw his ears swivel. What’s that water noise? I saw him thinking. Oh. My bed is soggy. The goatmaid should keep this place nicer. He carefully made his way out of the stall.

Back I went to the barn. I sopped up the two gallons of water with a towel. I shoveled wet bedding. I put new shavings down. Good-night boys, I said. Thank-you, they said. Can we have a bedtime snack?

I am off to the shower, again.

Three years ago, I decided that Lily needed a dog companion, one that she could rough-house with and challenge to tug-of-war games. On petfinder.com, I located a twenty-four pound corgi-mix who had just found her way into foster care and had whelped a litter of pups. I went to see. I was sure that the boy pup was just what I had in mind – a corgi-terrier -a tough mid-sized farm dog. I was wrong. Dad must have been a chihuahua. Scooter maxed out at 10 1/2 pounds.

I’ve never been a toy dog lover. I’ve no desire to dress up a dog, or baby a shivery, nervous, twitchy little thing. I think he’s relieved. He does shiver, and likes to sleep in sunny spots, but Scooter hates, hates, hates, to wear coats. He does not want to be carried around. Although he doesn’t play tug-of-war with Lily, he does bite her toes and makes her chase him.

Today we went for a walk in the woods. It was icy and muddy, but Scooter kept up. He leapt raging rivulets of water! He waded belly-deep through cold mud! He sniffed smells that needed sniffing and he left his mark on every three-inch high mound of turf. Scooter says he might be little, but he’s no toy.

This doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his creature comforts at home. Even the big dogs get to curl up and rest.

Around 5 PM, I popped Marge and Petunia into a large dog crate, Tina Turner and Siouxsie in another, and Coco in her guinea pig cage. Then I tucked them all into the minivan and off we went. Marge, of course, clucked and murmered the entire 45 minute drive to the museum. The chickens have never been on a wheely cart before, nor in a basement parking lot. Petunia stood up to get a good view. Cheryl White, from the Museum, is pushing one cart. I’ve got the other, and Steve helped with the doors. We had to take a freight elevator. Petunia found that interesting, too. Marge, of course, continued to make comments about her adventure.

I brought tarps, X-pens, shavings, water dishes, and plenty of treats. I was sure that the girls would stay in the pens. I was wrong. It was their bedtime. Even though the lecture hall had bright lights and there were over a hundred people in the audience, and Susan was talking into a mic, it was still bedtime. They needed to roost. Tina and Siouxsie tried to balance on the narrow wire X-pen, but couldn’t do it. Every few minutes I had to pick them up and put them back in their pen. Finally, I held one girl and Steve held another while we sat in the audience. For awhile that worked, but they got restless. We put them back. Then Marge and Petunia decided that they really, really, absolutely had to roost. Here, Marge is checking out Coco’s digs.

Petunia soon joined her on the edge of the X-pen, and both went to sleep.

I had no idea that chicken bedtimes were so written in stone. I was sure they went to sleep when it got dark. Now I know. The next time I do an evening program I’ll forgo all the treats, but bring roosts. I also know not to bother bringing shavings to put in the pens. What a mess.

Throughout all of this, Coco, my star traveling hen, stayed calm. She ate, she strutted, she relaxed. At the end of the program, I held her and a few dozen people pet her. She seemed to like the adulation.I let Susan Orlean hold her, and finally had to insist that Susan give her back.

This morning all of the girls were no worse the wear for all of the traveling. They were chipper and well. I even found a brown egg in the HenCam coop nesting box. Could all of this excitement have gotten Marge or Petunia to lay again?

However, time marches inexorable. (Such a cliche phrase, but I can’t resist using the word inexorable.) There’s proof of it in my pond.

In the fall, when the weather gets chilly, the fish in the pond slow down. I stop feeding them. In winter, ice and snow covers the water feature and the fish hibernate under the big rock.

The ice is receding.

Look who’s swimming around.

The Beast survived the winter, too. I saw her yesterday, moving slowly, but moving.

Buffy strides right out. I haven’t seen her move this fast for ages.

The ice around the goat’s paddock gate finally melted, so they got an outing, too.

Why stand on one chair, when you can try out two?

But, the boys don’t go too far without checking back in with me.

Everyone likes a different perspective on their home. Philomena gets up high. Caper tastes the door handle. Life is just so interesting!

This morning wet snow flurries are coming down. Leaves are blowing and treetops swaying – it’s exactly how March winds are supposed to be. But, it’s a springtime blow, we can all feel it. Smell it, too. The mint in the goat’s paddock is coming up, and when I raked there yesterday, the air smelled green.

gambol |ˈgambəl|verb ( -boled , -boling ; Brit. -bolled, -bolling) [ intrans. ]run or jump about playfully

If you’ve ever wanted to know how to make pudding that is perfectly smooth, with no lumps, and has the right balance of flavor to sweetness, follow along with me here.

The first thing to do is to separate the yolks from the whites. I could make meringue cookies out of the whites, but the weather is too damp for those to bake into the perfect airy texture (a rainy day like this makes chewy meringues.) So, I’ll be putting the whites aside and freezing them. As you crack each egg, drop each white into a small bowl, then add it to the rest. If even a speck of yolk breaks in with the whites, they’ll be useless for meringues, so, with this technique, only one white becomes contaminated and not all.

I always assemble all of my ingredients before I start cooking. Then, I clean up as I go along. This makes it impossible to forget an ingredient (a lesson learned when I left the bananas out of the banana muffins.) Here are all of my ingredients measured out and ready.

Notice that I’ve weighed my chocolate. My scale is one of my most-used kitchen tools. I’m using Trader Joe’s Belgian bittersweet baking chocolate. Also, I’m using 1% milk, but use whole if you’d like.

Here are the ingredients:

8 ounces dark chocolate
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
6 egg yolks
3 cups milk

I melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl set over simmering water. Use a large bowl, because you’ll be stirring the rest of the ingredients in later. Mixing in a too-small bowl is frustrating and messy – always use a bowl a tad bigger than you think you’ll need.

After setting aside the melted chocolate to cool a bit, I combine the cornstarch, sugar and salt in a pot. Then, whisk in the yolks.

Aren’t those yolks a gorgeous color? Even in the winter, my hens eat greens and table scraps, so the yolks remain a deep yellow. Once this mixture is smooth, add the milk. If you dump all of the liquid in at once, the flour will become lumpy. So, pour slowly and whisk at the same time.

Now you can turn on the heat. Bring that mixture right up to a boil, but be careful, because milk browns and sticks quickly. Keep whisking. I like to use a pot with curved sides, so that all gets whisked – a flat-sided pot has corners that the whisk cant’ reach.

As soon as it boils, set a timer for exactly one minute. Whisk, whisk whisk! Don’t be afraid of the bubbles! But, don’t have the heat on so high that it’s erupting and splattering all over. After one minute you should have a thick, smooth custard, but there’s always a lump or two lurking, or a bit of stringy, cooked egg white. So, the next step is to strain the custard through a mesh sieve.

Now you can stir the custard into the chocolate. Use a folding-over motion with a spatula. This keeps the pudding free of lumpy air bubbles.

When the color is uniformly, lusciously, chocolately brown, scrape it into a bowl.

Cover so that the plastic wrap is touching the pudding. This prevents a skin from forming as it chills.

Refrigerate for at least two hours. Or have a little bit while it’s warm. I did.

I’d be delighted to bring my presentation to your town. Email me at terry@terrygolson.com for details.

Buffy is five years old. Two years ago she was quite ill. I nursed her back to health – it took months – she now looks fine, but hasn’t laid an egg since she got sick.

Eleanor is six years old, and she spends her days basking in sunbeams. Her sister, Edwina is more active, but probably not going to lay many eggs this summer.

I’ve been thinking about my old hens, and it’s dawned on me that these are the first elderly chickens I’ve ever had. I don’t cull for productivity, and if a hen gets sick, I try to save her (even though it doesn’t make economic sense.) This morning, I went back through my records. I even made a chart to make sense of what has happened to my hens. I’ve had chickens since 1996. I’ve  lost chickens to a vicious raccoon attack, to hawks and to disease. I was surprised to see that Eleanor and Edwina, Petunia and Marge are the most long-lived hens that I’ve ever had.

I like having old hens.

I like that I can recognize Marge’s buk-buk-clucking. I like seeing Eleanor laze about, her beady eye cocked up at me, clearly saying, I’m here and I’m not moving. So there. I like seeing how Buffy puts up with Lulu’s attempts at friendship. I know these hens. The chickens give me more than eggs. There’s something inexplicably satisfying about standing in the coop, early on a cold morning, tossing corn to the girls. They talk to me. I talk back. They go about their busy chicken day. I go back inside to mine, having gotten to a good start with the community in the coop.