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| January 2010 | Page 1 Of 1 | |
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Playing with Nature at our Home in the Mountains
Posted On 2010-01-03 , 6:10 PM
There always seemed to be a hen sitting on eggs at our place, nine times out of ten they weren’t fertilised and the poor old hen just patiently sat there with her wings spread for the 21 days, strutting off for food and water once a day. Our kids loved it, watching, waiting - sometimes being rewarded with a bunch of fluffy yellow chicks that cheeped around in fluffy bunches learning how to search for food with their very attentive mother, hence the name broody hen evolved.
We lived in the mountains, miles from anywhere, on the shores of a lake in the South Island of New Zealand. The hen house was on a rise over looking the lake, strictly blue chip waterfront property, you can guess how much each egg would have fetched should it ever have reached the open market. They were totally organic, often the double yokers and were so orange, thanks to earth moving worms and grubs, that our American visitors wouldn’t eat them, they carefully trimmed the white away from the yolk and ate that leaving the yolk as orange as a road workers vest, lonely on the plate.
Also cholesterol reared its ugly head when the word ‘EGG’ was muttered. My life partner and father of my three healthy children adored mountain omelettes, to digress, a mountain omelette has roughly 10-12 eggs lightly whipped and poured into a pan with a knob of butter, pepper and salt and as you would expect his cholesterol level was dead low. You could see the glint in their American eyes as they prepared to put one of those many CPR courses into practice.
Everything was organic and fresh back then, we didn’t know there was another way, we raised and butchered our own meat, caught trout and salmon, killed poultry, picked wild berries in season - always coming out mutilated and bleeding as the biggest berries were always in the centre of the bush, picked wild mushrooms - doing mini marathons racing across paddocks often lured by a piece of sheep’s wool or a white stone.
We milked a beautiful jersey cow with eyelashes to die for, separated the cream in a large steel separator that probably wouldn’t pass health and safety now, but we all survived. We made cottage cheese and yogurt, brewed beer that bubbled away happily in the hot water cupboard in large a glass vat saved from some defunct wool company.
Ducks, in duck shooting season didn’t stand a chance if the cloud was low, they were plucked and gutted for the pot. Eels were smoked, salmon was filleted, rabbits spotlighted from the tray of the ute - skinned gutted and into the freezer. We didn’t need to go night clubbing, golfing, or fine dining - adventure was all on our doorstep.
One day we were out on the river beach where the Canada Geese nest, these magnificent huge birds had migrated from Canada some years ago and thought it was party time at our farm with two paddocks of new spring grass sprouting - wow - go no further. Wandering along we found a nest of four eggs hidden in the scrub, gently placing them in an old jacket we zipped home and carefully put the eggs under the broody hen.
She was in egg heaven, we knew the three eggs she was sitting on had not been fertilised as the old rooster had up and died, and we hadn’t found a replacement. This was definitely top surveillance stuff and we were duly rewarded with 4 fluffy goslings, all was well in the water front hen house.
Mother hen fussed around them, taught them to scratch for food and water by day and huddle under her wings by night. They knew better than to fly over the fence into my garden that was definitely out of bounds, so even hens can be trained and don’t need to go to chicken or gosling Pre School.
As these tiny fluffy creatures grew, and grow they did, they struggled for wing space under Mother Hen’s puffed out wings which definitely frustrated her. Then one day as we were all down at the lake kayaking and swimming, the kids on rafts sculptured from tree trunks, when Mother Hen bought her goslings down for a drink and they casually popped onto the lake and swam away.
Mother Hen clucked and stamped her little hen feet, squawking frantically as she raced up and down the beach, feathers ruffled, clucking and waving her wings and still the goslings pottered about the lake enjoying their new found freedom, enjoying the scenery and doing what comes naturally.
We raced up to the house brought some bread back to try and coax the goslings back to shore to no avail. Mother Hen was frantic and flustered raging up and down the beach waddling from foot to foot frantically throwing her head back and suddenly she flapped her wings wildly and fell over dead.
We were all stunned, guilty beyond belief - the goslings eventually came to shore and stood over Mother Hen, confused and not comprehending the implications of their benefactor.
We did, what a lesson, we will never interfere with nature again.
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