The Little Red Hen Moves To Egypt

 I have about ten people working for me on my farm, helping to care for the animals, working in the gardens and basically providing a lot of support for me. They've all worked for me for some time...like before the revolution.  After the revolution our busy schedules of school visits, equestrian tourism and so on pretty much died. A lot of stables around me unloaded their horse and cut staff right away, but I couldn't do that to families that I was supporting or to the  horses that I'd rescued. So we tightened belts and looked for ways to economise. One way was to turn the land between the horse paddocks and the garden into vegetable gardens for the use of all the staff and their families. The deal is that everyone chips in on the work and everyone benefits. So the other day after lunch I took a look at the beds and announced to the grooms and gardeners that everyone needed to put in some weeding time. Not all of them were thrilled so I told them a story, one I'd heard as a child,  The Little Red Hen.

My Arabic is functional, not perfect by any means, so the story was somewhat simplified for them. For anyone who doesn't know this story, it is a staple for North American children in their pre-school years. Briefly, a red hen is walking around one day when she finds some wheat on the road. She gathers up the grain and decides to use it to grow more wheat so that she can bake some bread. At various points in the process (planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, milling, and baking) she asks various animal friends (cow, donkey, duck, dog, cat, rooster) to assist her, but each one has a sort of excuse as to why they can't help her....until, of course, the bread was baked and everyone wanted some, but the little red hen tells them that since they were too busy to help, they must be too busy to eat.

The guys all listened politely to the end and then at the end, one of them began to laugh and said, "See? She fooled them!" Another slightly more socially adept groom suggested that it was something else. I laughed and said that yes, if they wanted to eat the bread (or in our case, the vegetables) they needed to be there for the work and announced that I was the red hen. All very simple, you'd think, but the young man who took the story as the hen taking advantage of and then laughing at her neighbours then spent hours trying to figure out who among them was the donkey, the cat, the duck and so on.


Sometimes stories don't travel all that well.






copyright 2012 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

The Relaxing Country Life - Hah!

I think that I know what Old MacDonald died from. My strong suspicion is that it was exhaustion. When I decided to have a small working farm, at first I envisioned a place about twice the size of what I have now. Land prices decided otherwise for me, and in some ways I'm glad. I'd love to have bigger paddocks, but I'm understanding the direct relationship between land area and work now. I have about 3/4 of an acre that we plant in crops for the keeping of ourselves and our animals. Fresh vegetables, right? Wonderful....hmmmm, yes. My vegetable drawers in the fridge are running over with aubergines, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and okra, while strings of onions and garlic festoon the verandah. The ata (a local variety of cucumber) and the sweet potatoes haven't started to be harvested yet. The grooms' refrigerator is in a similar state, but at least I don't have to worry about anyone going hungry.

So a major portion of this chunk of land is currently planted in garawa, which is simply corn that is planted closely together so that it stays more grassy and is used for feed for horses, cows, goats, etc. When it is planted this way, it doesn't produce the amount of corn that stalks which are widely separated do...thank heaven! Because every day now, the boys cut garawa for the gamoosa, donkeys, goats and sheep, and every day they strip the corn off the stalks so that the corn can be used for the parrots and rabbits if it's too small to roast in the evening. The larger ears are roasted over coals and just eaten warm without any additives, and they are delicious. So I have chopped ears of corn in many ziploc bags in the freezer and fridge awaiting delivery to birds and bunnies. I have grilled corn every evening for dinner and frankly am getting a bit sick of corn...but the field is only a quarter empty. Oh my.

Then there are the sunflowers. I love sunflowers. I think that they are beautiful and the parrots adore the seeds. With our weather, we can grow them pretty much year round as well. So when they were seeding the field with the corn, they seeded sunflowers, three different kinds. We have the black seed sunflowers, the striped seed sunflowers, and the white seed sunflowers. They each give different sized flowers and LOTS of seeds. As soon as we notice the birds taking an interest in the flower head, we cut it and lay it face down on a rack in the sun. The heads need to dry but if they are face down on an open rack, the birds don't seem to recognise them to come and eat all the seeds. I doubt that I will be buying seed for the parrots this year.

With a batch of baby ducks and three litters of rabbits in the flight cages, breakfast preparation for the birds has taken on a new dimension. I have chopped corn cobs for the parrots and rabbits, all the vegetable leftovers for the chickens, the fruit/vegetable salad for the parrots, and now a large plate of chopped tomato, cucumber, and pepper for the baby ducks who eat with all the delicacy of a horde of locusts. They are cuteness personified toddling around the cage floor, climbing up on bricks to get into the plastic dish that is their pool, and swimming around...but they are all business when it comes to food. We are enjoying their cuteness stage and appreciative of the fact that they will grow up to resemble their father, who was recently re-named Howard after another cartoon character who more closely resembles our father duck than Donald does. It's a lot easier to roast someone who looks like Howard, and I have people already lining up for ducks.

Rabbits are kind of automatic feeders...but that just means that their keepers have to be on their toes with the food. Our first two litters seem to be providing breeding stock to neighbours who want to breed rabbits, which is fine with me. In the meantime, they are wonderfully entertaining to visiting children who can spend hours sitting on the ground with baby bunnies on their laps. The baby ducks are entertaining too, but Howard is pretty scary so kids have to wait until I will pick out some ducklings to cuddle.

Then there are the flowers to check for seeds to plant in new beds, the flax seed that we harvested from beds of flax this winter needs to be sifted to get rid of dust and dirt, the basil plants are growing like weeds this summer so that they have to be trimmed regularly to make pesto or just to harvest leaves for friends and neighbours. Horses have to be ridden, wormed and checked regularly for stupid horse boo-boos that they accumulate while playing in the paddock. The filly has to be haltered and walked daily so that she learns to obey humans while she is small enough that we can still manhandle her when she acts silly. And one of the turkey hens is sharing a box with one of the chicken hens because they are both sitting on chicken eggs to hatch them. We've marked the eggs so that new eggs can be collected for eating...however, turkeys and hens take a dim view of egg-theft and collecting is now done at the risk of your hands. But at the end of the day with a glass of ice tea, it's still worth the effort.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Population Explosion

One of the interesting things about a farm is that it's a place to grow things. Pretty basic, right? We grow corn, aubergine, cucumber, tomatoes, dates, all sorts of eating things. We also have chickens, turkeys, ducks and rabbits, not to mention a flock of highly fertile parakeets. My previous flock of chickens produced a fair number of eggs, but bird flu culling got them before we got any babies. This year has paid back for all the lack. Our first arrival was Negmat Sallamat on the evening of March 8 (see "New Arrivals" post). Then we had three of our goats give birth in fairly quick succession. I have one nanny, a red goat that I call Pippi due to her resemblance to Pippi Longstocking. The others belong to my driver and one of my grooms. Mohamed's were the first babies, two adorable black and white females, who quickly began running and bouncing all over the goat pen to the delight of us all. The next to arrive were Pippi's twins, Golda and Sharon. (I didn't name them. Don't blame me.) Golda was born with a twisted back leg, something that happened to her in utero, and despite my concerns she has turned into an active athletic kid. When Golda and Sharon were about a month old, Mohamed's other female gave birth to twins a few weeks early. The female was stillborn and the male was a bit weak. His mother wasn't the most willing caretaker and had to be held to nurse little Bush (again, I didn't do the naming). He's come along quite well and now there are five little popcorn balls flying around the paddock to the delight of visiting children. All of the goats have discovered that children are a brilliant source of treats and scratches...they donkeys got that sorted out months ago.
We started out with four rabbits last winter and now have three litters of babies with more to come. The first litter are almost as big as their parents and are sharing space with the chickens and turkeys to give the younger litters space. The chickens were a bit put out at first but they've figured out that bunnies don't bite birds, and life in that flight cage is pretty calm. The mid-sized bunnies are the favourites for cuddling. At about a month, they are hand-sized and cuddly. The older ones are better at twisting out of a lap, and the adults are not that thrilled with humans.
This morning I had a riding lesson for the daughters of some friends, and after the lesson we all went to the bird house to visit bunnies. The girls are five and eight, prime bunny age, and they played with furry things while I checked food and water for the parrots and other creatures. I went to check on Oprah, one of my turkey hens who has been very determinedly sitting on some chicken and duck eggs for the past few weeks. The turkeys don't have a male so their eggs get collected regularly for breakfasts. When I reached under her, Oprah's response was rather less than welcoming...a hen turkey pecks pretty hard...and we found a pair of baby Muscovy ducks. This is the first time I've had baby ducks that small and they are criminally cute. We moved them to the duck cage where Daphne, one of the female Muscovies was hiding another six nestlings under her wings.

A natural question is what we plan to do with all of these little creatures. Well, this is a farm and I do have staff to feed and people who are very interested in being able to buy clean fresh meat. Personally, I eat some poultry and fish with fruit and vegetables, so I can't see myself chowing down on Bush or Sharon. The male goats are castrated and raised for meat, while the females stick around for milk and breeding. I do like rabbit and find that adult rabbits seriously drop on the cute scale...but then I won't be doing the slaughtering of them though I will ensure that it is done quickly and cleanly. The ducks, being Muscovies, are the best for meat production and again get a lot less cute as they grow up. They will most probably be sold when they are about half grown to people who will feed them to slaughter weight. Maybe it seems a bit heartless, but who's to say that it's any worse than eating peaches?

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Even Chickens Like To Eat Out

First of all, I want to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas...or maybe it's an early one. We celebrate Christmas twice in Egypt, first on December 24/25 (Christmas Eve is often more celebrated by the Europeans) and second on January 7 with the Copts and Eastern/Greek Orthodox. Egyptians love a party and really have no problem with any excuse for one. This year the Eid el Adha, the Greater Feast that celebrates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son in obedience to God's orders, will be starting on New Year's Eve so we have that as well. Crowded holiday season we are enjoying.
How did I spend my Christmas? First of all, my children are in the US this year so we aren't together. That is a bit sad, but life is like that. Airfares are expensive and school holidays are not so long. On Christmas Eve, I went to my friend Kati's home in Maadi for a Christmas Eve dinner as I've done for the past three or four years. Kati is a Finn raised in the Middle East who was married to a Lebanese businessman and has raised her three daughters in Egypt. The oldest who is the same age as my daughter is currently studying in the UK, her middle daughter couldn't make it home from San Diego where she is studying, and the youngest is still in school here. Kati's ex-husband and our friend Mona and her son Ali joined us all for dinner. Ali, is an irrepressible seven year old, who gave people a good excuse to buy toys to put under the tree and then had all of us playing with him. I'd been so busy out at the farm that I hadn't been into the city for almost a week and I gave a selection of farm produce: fresh lettuces, homemade pesto, and chicken and turkey eggs. A lovely evening. Then Boxing Day (December 26 for non Brits or Canucks) I found myself with an invitation to a Norwegian Christmas brunch with my neighbours. Norwegians eat an amazing selection of smoked and cured meats and fish for Christmas; moose salami, reindeer paté, various types of salmon, trout and herring. Eating out is such fun.

The poultry at the farm are becoming more and more entertaining. Every morning when I go to feed the parrots, ducks, turkeys, and chickens they all rush around to try out breakfast at every one else's house. The poultry eat the leftover birdbread and fruit/vegetable mix as well as their own corn and greens daily. The food in every flight cage is identical, so it must be the ambience that causes the moving around. The chickens live with the Cuban Amazons and sleep on a wooden curtain rod that serves as a long perch in the center of the cage, while the Amazons seem to prefer to perch in a corner near the top of the cage. It's quite funny to go out to the cages and see a long line of baladi hens on the long swing. I have about eight chickens, seven hens and one rooster. While a friend was visiting a while back we began naming them after explorers and got as far as Erik the Red for the rooster, Henry (for the Navigator for a beige hen who is always wandering out of her flight, Vasco, Pizarro, and a number of others. But they are pretty hard to keep track of. They give me about 5 small eggs daily.

The turkeys live with Ali the African Grey and Bamba the Bahamian Amazon. They also seem to prefer to sleep at altitude, having taken over a corner perch for the nights. Otherwise they patrol the ground looking for fallout from above. African Greys are interesting diners in that they will look through the bowl for the most delectable bits and toss anything in the way onto the ground. It didn't take the turkeys long to figure out that standing around under the parrot dishes was a very good idea. My housekeeper bought me the turkeys who are lovely bronze birds with low chortling vocalisations. They were supposed to be a male and a female and were originally called Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemimah, but as it happens they are both females and Uncle Tom is now called Oprah. They give big speckled eggs that are collected for eating since they aren't fertile. We are planning to have a male join us soon, but for now the eggs are delicious and I love the sounds of the turkeys. There are no plans to eat them. Instead , I'd prefer the eggs and to raise the young turkeys. Turkeys are surprisingly good flyers and I have to be careful to herd them gently back to their flight cage after breakfast so that they don't go airborne and frighten the other birds.

When I was considering ducks for the farm, I went online to learn something about ducks. According to the sources that I found, most domestic ducks are descended from two duck lines, either the mallards from Europe and North America or the Muscovy ducks from South America. Most of the ducks in the farming area are Muscovy or a mix of Muscovy and Mallard. I have one male, called Donald naturally, and then there are the girls, Daphne and Daisy. They have a plastic tub to play around in and they live in the flight cage with Fritzi the African Grey and his flock of budgies and the lovebirds. Donald is black and white with a small crest of feathers that rise up if he gets excited. There are two eggs in the nest box right now so hopefully we will have some ducklings soon. Again, these three will not be for dinner but for parenting. I get a kick out of the ducks because they are the least shy of all the birds and will eat out of my hand. Although the picture of the ducks shows a bare concrete floor, they all have chopped straw spread over the floors to give them some warmth in the winter winds and something to scratch around in.

The eggs that you get from properly fed poultry are absolutely wonderful. The shells are hard enough that you have to work to crack them and the yolks are a deep red orange. The larger eggs in the bowl are the turkey eggs, the large white egg at about one o'clock in the bowl is a commercial chicken egg and all the tiny eggs are my baladi chickens' work. My arugula and basil are adding the green touches.