This entry starts with a story, and a warning about the story: If you are grossed out by discussions of animals consuming each other, look away!

One very cold day recently, in a break between snows, we cut and hauled firewood. The large chunks went to the garden, where there is a chopping block for splitting firewood. It is nearby to the compost pile, which is currently a 3 foot pile of frozenness. As I unloaded and stacked wood sections, I heard a rodent squeaking somewhere behind me. Not among the wood pile - farther away. When I realized it was a continuous squeaking, I went searching, out of curiousity. The squeak/squawk was repeated, continuous, “Eeee, Eeeeee, Eeeeee…” and in the snow, easy to find. To my amazement, there was a mole frozen into the compost pile.

Elvis is a very serious fellow

The mole was in a little burrow just slightly larger than his body, but the burrow had apparently frozen solid around him, and perhaps the expanding ice had shrunken it. His snout and front feet stuck out the exit hole, about 2 feet above the ground, and he was wiggling and squawking, trying to get out. He could not back up, it seemed he was in more of a blind pocket than a tunnel.

Now the chickens had caught sight of me moving around in the garden, and came to investigate. They cocked their heads for just a moment when they heard the squeaking, then one instant later were on top of the compost pile. Two hens discovered the mole immediately and went to work trying to drag him out of his hole. This caught Elvis the Rooster’s attention, and in a flash he was on the compost pile efficiently putting the mole out of his misery and dragging him out of his icy chamber.

In the time it took me to try to decide whether to intervene and save the mole or not, it was over. If it hadn’t been for the chickens, I would have helped the mole. But the mole was likely destined for slow death by freezing if I tried to free him into an environment he could not negotiate. Moles live underground. In fact, moles wreak havoc tunneling beneath the plants in the garden all summer long. The chickens provided a quick and logical solution to all angles of the story. And the mole…provided a protein supplement to the chickens.

That’s right - they ate him. They linked right into that food chain, and the mole that had lived off of our food in the garden fed the chickens that will turn around and feed us with their eggs. Chickens are little dinosaurs. Little fierce dragonlike beings, who (contrary to bucolic fantasy about merely pecking at grain gracefully) will go on rampages and absolutely ravage anything that looks remotely like a food source.

In the wintertime, the ranging chickens’ scavenged foods are cut back severely. We have a stockpile of squashes and vegetable material that is their usual, more vegetarian, source of alternate nutrients. Hopefully the beta carotene in the squash will help keep the nutrient levels in the eggs up a bit for the winter. The hens love to peck out the rind of a squash…. and I’m putting the orange squash picture next to the picture of the bright yellow beaten eggs ready to complete a fritatta, to illustrate the relationship. Colorful foods are good for all of us!

fritatta with brussels sprouts and blue potatoes

trombetta squash snack