Henny Penny Farmette

It’s nearly Thanksgiving and our Henny Penny Farmette continues to bring forth delicious, organically grown edibles for our table for which we feel truly grateful.

We give thanks, too, for neighbors like Dan and Annie. This past Sunday, Annie carted to our house a box of persimmons and bags of apples and pomegranates. We harvested all our apples last month so her timing was great. While we have persimmons and pomegranates hanging on the trees in our small orchard, many are not yet ripe enough to pick.

Ripe pomegranate

Last month, I froze cubes of butternut squash in freezer bags and readied pumpkin flesh for pie. While picking a few ripe persimmons recently, I noticed that we’re sharing them with a visitor who seems to sneak in and munch during the night. I’m thinking the culprit could be a raccoon, opossum, skunk, squirrel, fox, or a gaggle of wild turkeys that seem to make an annual pilgrimage through our area.

The two main types of persimmons grown on our farmette are Fuyu and Hachiya. The Fuyu is rather squat-looking and Hachiya has an elongated shape. Both take on a bright orange color in the fall. When fully ripe, Fuyu is sweet and crunchy like an apple whereas the Hachiya is soft like jelly. Though commonly thought of as fruits, persimmon and pomegranate are technically berries.

Pomegranate and persimmon are plentiful this time of year

Fuyu persimmons can be peeled, sliced, and eaten fresh, roasted, or tossed into salads. They add a vibrant splash of orange to a winter salad that could include slices of citrus and pear tossed with greens,walnuts,  pomegranate seeds, and goat cheese.

Pomegranates are ripe when their leathery outer covering turns red and begins to crack. Inside each pomegranate is white tissue separating compartments of ruby-red seeds called arils.

Ripe pomegranates hang heavy on the trees this time of year

The seeds are high in antioxidants that reduce inflammation and free radical damage. Though they are messy to remove, the pomegranate seeds are healthy and nutritious additions to any diet.

To preserve pomegranate seeds, freeze them on a baking sheet. Once frozen, slip the seeds into freezer bags and return to the freezer. The seeds can be kept frozen for months.

Pumpkins come in a variety of sizes and types. Personally, I prefer the sugar pumpkins for recipes calling for pumpkin as an ingredient.

French sugar pumpkin are small but perfect for pies

This week as we prepare for the big feasting day of Thanksgiving, lots of cooks are already baking pumpkin pies.  Many will use canned pumpkin as a shortcut to their pie preparation but pumpkin filling made from scratch is especially delicious.

Our pumpkin pie features leaves of pie dough, brushed with egg, and sprinkled with sugar before baking

The old fashioned way to make pumpkin pie from scratch is to use fresh, organic pumpkin puree from the produce that you’ve grown in your garden. The process to make a pie takes longer because first the pumpkin must be peeled, seeded, and cut into manageable pieces and then cooked down. Then just follow your favorite pumpkin pie recipe.

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Check out more recipes and tips for healthy country living in my Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries (Kensington Publishing, NY).

This three-book series of cozy mysteries features elements based on the real Henny Penny Farmette

I unlatched the hen house door to let the birds out for the day. Then I filled water basins for my chickens, honeybees, and farmette wildlife. Finally, with chores done, I returned to the farmhouse to work on my new book.

Rhode Island Red hen in the foreground

Lost in a tense winter scene for novel number three, I wrote until I heard the chickens cackling as they do when they lay an egg or are frustrated because they can’t get the nesting box already occupied by another hen. And of late, that happens often because one of my Wyandotte chickens has gone broody. She’s sitting on two dozen eggs and it’s futile since we don’t have a rooster. Those eggs will never hatch.

As the cackle grew louder. I stopped typing to peer out the window next to my desk. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but on the off chance that a skunk, fox, chicken hawk, or other predator had invaded the yard or the hen house, I got up. I had to check.

By now the cackle had become deafening. I thought the chicken might be at the back door. As I turned from my computer to walk down the hall past my bedroom, I saw my Rhode Island Red directly in my path. Her cackle could wake the dead. So why was she making such a ruckus.

Then I saw it–a dollop of chicken poop on my new hardwood floor. She must have known I’d be furious. And she’d been trying to tell me something. I swooped her up and carried her outside, making a mental note to always check the door on the farmhouse. My office is no place for a chicken.

Several times over the last month or so, I’ve traipsed to the hen house to collect eggs and found a broken egg or one with a hole in the shell and the egg otherwise intact.

The rust-colored Rhode Island Red is the dominant hen in my flock

I wondered if one of the chickens had gone rogue and was pecking the egg that either she or one of the other hens had laid.

My flock is small and they usually lay their eggs during the morning hours, using the afternoon to free range and forage.

Each time I heard a cackle, I sprinted to the chicken house to see who was raising the ruckus and whether or not she’d pecked her egg.

Finally, I caught one of my Silver-Lace Wyandotte hens on the nest. With her head twisted behind and under her wing, I could not tell what was going on. I slipped my hand under her, causing her head to jerk around. It appeared I had caught her in the act as her beak was covered with yolk.

Hawks are capable of carrying off a chicken

So I thought I’d solved the mystery. My solution was to remove each egg as soon as the hen laid it. If I removed the eggs, any temptation for the chickens to peck the eggs would be eliminated, too. But running for every chicken squawk became so time consuming, I finally stopped.

To my utter surprise, there were no more broken eggs. That didn’t make sense. However, during the whole ordeal with the broken eggs, I’d been smelling a skunk. When my closest neighbor said a skunk had been raiding his coop for the eggs, I began to think I had wrongly accused my poor Wyandotte.

Indeed, since my neighbor took care of the skunk (by trap, I believe), my hens are producing eggs every day and none have holes or are cracked. I’m now thinking the skunk was the egg robber.

One of three foxes we caught checking out the chicken house

That experience got me thinking about other predators that will eat chicken eggs (and chickens, too). The list includes opossums, weasels, rats, snakes, minks, foxes, wild dogs, coyotes, raccoons, hawks, and owls. So, even if I’ve got a nice hen house and a run with a wire roof, it seems that a predator motivated by a good meal with find a way in.