Seeds are Up!

I was getting a little nervous... even told Keith I might 

re-plant... but look! 

These containers are big enough that I can let them be for a while, and grow them on. 

I'll have to raise the lights.  

I'm so glad to see their little selves! 

Here are some happy chickens in the yard at the henspa. 

If you can remember, this yard grew up almost impenitrably (is that a word?) 

last year with no chickens in it.  Everything in the feed that I used to spread sprouted and grew... huge 

millet plants, etc.  These 11 birds, because Rooster Cogburn is still inside... 

have been turning it over, as you can see.  They have access underneath the building, as well. 

The ground would hold a great garden. 

Right now, our new home and old home are in the "Watch" or "Yellow" Zones for 

the avian flu announced on Friday in Leavenworth County. 

I am not driving through Basehor to go back and forth, as they are out of the zone.  I am 

not driving through the Hot Zone at all. 

This is being treated VERY seriously, and the USDA is on site in 

Basehor, running things.  We have reported our small flock, and 

I went out to put feed out here, and found a dead songbird on the patio. 

I called and reported it, though it is unlikely that it was bird flu. 

We suspect a neighbor's cat (or Lilly).  They are going to call 

me back and asked me not to dispose of it. 

The man who initially reported... God Bless him... lost 8 birds in 

one day last week, and called the Kansas Dept. of Agriculture.

His small flock had to be humanely euthanized.  I have not 

been told of any others euthanized at this point.  

The red zone is where you see the hot area. 

No birds or eggs can move into or out of both circled areas. 

The four dozen eggs I was going to take to the Good 

Shepherd this week are staying in the fridge... however, I can 

give them to Troy and Kathy to eat because they are also in the 

yellow area. 

This strain of Avian flu is not easily passed to man. It is 

carried by wild birds, usually geese.  

I showed you the new beds we had dug here in Fairmount last week...

Keith is feeling better, and is going to build "walls" around them with cedar lumber, 

so that there is a good cutting edge. Then I'll build them up as I did the old with 

straw, manure and good dirt.  

Here is a bed of iris at the old house, that still needs some grass dug from it.  These are 

old-fashioned green and blue, and I am going to dig a few and bring them here. 

Today, after three days of glorious sunny weather, we are back at 39 and some rain, and 

heavy clouds.  We need the rain!  

Conditions... very warm, and very windy, these last three days, have 

prohibited many pictures of hawks... I saw one this morning, 

but don't think I got a very good picture of it.  The hawk down on 

our "corner" of 155th and Fairmount, has disappeared.  I have suspected 

she was a female, and I am guessing that at this point, she is on a nest somewhere. 

A Balmy Saturday

Our great temperatures continue... and I am going to show you a picture and see if you notice something in the background! 

See the background?  The first crocus are up at the old house! 

I forgot to take a picture directly of them.  The iris in the overgrown 

bed behind these birds need to be dug up and separated, but they are already raising their 

green shoots.  In the last three days, the tulips have all started up, too. 

I had no one behind me on the levee today, and was able to stop and take a picture of 

this limestone building that is slowly crumbling on the century - old farm. 

The people who own that building also own this one across the road. 

They renewed it two years ago, and did a great job. 

I hope they can do something about this old building.  

This beautiful old barn on the outside of Tonganoxie is also 

deteriorating rapidly.  There were two towers on it when we 

moved there ten years ago.  Little by little, it's falling apart. 

This was a famous barn in it's time.  It saddens me, too. 

This girl lives a few miles from us, in a mixed herd of cows. 

There is a large farm here that runs a big herd of longhorns, I'm assuming she came from there 

Pretty big rack, huh?  

The little chestnut girl and her friends are all ignoring their hay bales and going for the new green grass coming up.  Trouble is, they will have it grazed down to dirt in no time. 

Here's our friend with the hurt wing, but as you can see, he can get up high now!  

I'm glad. 

And here's our dark guy... isn't he magnificent?  I rarely get 

pictures of him, because he will not hold still for me to sit and 

take shots. 

He's much darker than the others. 

Double click that first picture, and you can see him clearly. 

As you can see... I am finding eggs everywhere these days.  There was another under the steps up to the henhouse.  

As of last night, the Kansas Dept. of Agriculture has announced that there is a presumptive positive report of Avian flu in Leavenworth County in a hobby flock of chickens and ducks. 

We have not heard if the annual Heart of America Game Bird Breeders Association auction today in Gardner was cancelled at the last minute, but Keith notified the emergency management dept for which he works that there was a huge poultry auction today, as soon as we heard about the pronouncement.  Leavenworth County flocks are quarantined until they determine what is going on. 

Bad news for small chicken flock keepers.