A Warmer Wednesday

Whew, 55 degrees at 5:47 PM... much better than yesterday! 

Look what I found in the henyard this morning: 

I should have taken a picture of them in situ, and will, tomorrow.  

As you see, one duck has again laid an egg as big as a goose egg, and it has to be the Pekin, or the third Khaki.  As you also see, the eggs are no longer green.  I attribute this to the fact that the "girls" are no longer on grass, as they were in their former home.  

What happens when you leave the hose running and run inside the henhouse for a minute. 

This was a stunning surprise! 

It's Fancy, my three year old Porcelain D'Uccle rooster, who lives in the rafters of the henspa, and literally no longer comes down. 

There must have been a battle royal this morning with some of the younger roosters, because he was OUTSIDE and appeared to be enjoying it.  I hope so... he was meant to be the boss of the henspa, originally. 

I'll be going out there tonight and netting him if he can't figure out how to get back inside. 

It doesn't take long for the ducks to jump right into their clean pool! 

That's it for a thankfully warmer day at Calamity Acres! 

Random Thoughts for Friday

Well, my blog list seems to have disappeared from Blogger... this has happened several times, but I have logged in twice now and it is gone, so I am not able to catch up on people's blogs right now... this is the list on the layout page, not the sidebar. 

 

The weatherman warned us of drive-time rains today, but we have sadly not had even a sprinkle, and at this point, there is a sunny afternoon outside.  I am going to go out and pick up black walnuts from the yard, both for excercise and for a friend who wants to take them for processing.  I did not know that Kansas had at least ten hulling stations for black walnut sales... I would have been giving her the walnuts for the last eight years!

 

I don't know how many of you have the Kindle readers, either of them.  I have toyed with getting one off and on, but I love the feel of a good book in my hands.  However, I became aware that you could download "Kindle for PC", and my goodness... there are literally hundreds of books that are free or of low cost that are downloadable.  I subscribe to several blogs in my email, and daily receive offers of these books.  They are not the American novel... but there are books with LOTS of good gardening information, and information about other subjects, as well as cooking, homeschooling, etc... and many children's books.  Once you get used to navigating the book sideways.... it is easy to read them.  It takes, even with my slow connection, maybe 50 seconds to download.  I also paid 4.99 for the Pioneer Woman Cooks Kindle version, after picking it up and putting it down for 26.95 many times.

Here are two of the sites where I get the free book offers, and, as the authors say, you must look at their emails daily, because what is free today may be 19.95 tomorrow!  One site is The Prudent Pantry, and it's sister site The Prudent Reader, and these also offer free apps, too.   Another one is www.moneysavingmom.com, which is actually the one that turned me on to the free books. 

 

This little guy fell off the tomato plant yesterday when I picked the green tomatos.  He's beautiful, isn't he?

 

He's a tomato hornworm.  I would be concerned but we are so clearly at the end of our gardening cycle... I had to cycle the furnace on today because the house was so dank.

 

Here's what the net has to say about him:

 

The adult moths, sometimes referred to as a "sphinx", "hawk", or "hummingbird" moths, are large, heavy-bodied insects with narrow front wings. The tomato hornworm moth is a mottled gray-brown color with yellow spots on the sides of the abdomen and a wingspread of four to five inches. The hindwings have alternating light and dark bands.

 

Crazy, crazy gardening year.  As I cut weeds yesterday, I came across this out in the middle of the yard... and it wasn't the only one...

 

 

Notice how the weeds are still growing?  We need to re-seed the entire yard, I admit it.

 

 

What IS it about the D'Uccles that makes them want to walk the fences?  The Naughty Girls, who are the Mille Fleur version, did this, too.  These two little guys are likely trying to stay out of the way of the sparring roosters, however, pretty soon they are going to be living the batchelor life.  They are also going to find their own little white house closed tonight, so they have to go in the red henhouse behind them so everyone can snuggle together.   It didn't get any warmer today than 52, right now... and was considerably cooler this morning.

 

Right now, I'm going out to do chores and pick up walnuts! 

There's a big pot of chili on the stove to warm me when I come in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much Better Tonight

Tony was much better off tonight, and not displaying any signs of distress.  Keith will stop at home at mid-day tomorrow to eat lunch and refresh water.  By noon, all the waterers are so hot the animals can't drink from them.

The juveniles are now out of their little pen during the day, so the big chickens are imprisoned in the henyard, as I don't want the little ones in the pasture. Something came from the sky into the little henyard today, and I think I may be missing a white hen.... there were feathers everywhere. Tonight I heard an owl very close, and shooed Bitty and Muffy into the henhouse with the rest of the birds, even though they want to roost outside nightly.  I have a feeling I will be cutting flight feathers this weekend.

The D'uccles, both Mille Fleur and Porcelains, are not just big fliers, but very friendly and want to see what's going on.  As soon as I took this picture, the cockerel flew to my shoulder, and rode around with me while I did waters (again!)

They are ALL going to have their flight feathers trimmed.

Here is another one that is:

She MAYBE weighs six ounces, she is the smallest of all the hens, the Old English brassy back red pullet.

She flew OUT of the pen today, and Lilly was in the yard.  My heart stopped, but I was able to catch her and get her back in.  I should have gone for the scissors then and there.

Here is Brutus, the Welsummer cockerel, mooning at the gate because he wants back in with his buddies in the juvenile pen.  He is WAY too big at this point, as you see.  He was already starting to beat the little guys up. 

Aztec has the right idea... I keep the ground around the tank good and wet, so it stays as cool as possible.  Butch's two hens lay back there behind it, in the shade of the walnut tree, and Azzie likes to lay by it.  Her mama uses the pool, and I am hoping Azzie learns how, too.

Lil has the coolest place in the house, the bathroom floor.  Smart girl!

A Cold Saturday

Today started out wet and cold, after the wind blew hard all night.  It was amazing how the whistling of the wind literally woke me up from a deep sleep... I got up to look out and make sure everything was okay.  Keith was so tired from the week that he slept right through it. 

Today, I bought three more chicks from Heartland Hatchery at our favorite feed store, Valley Feed in Bonner Springs, Kansas.  I have traded there for about 16 years, and I like their milled feeds, packaged under the Kaw Valley brand.  I managed to close my eyes to the hundreds and hundreds of cheeping chicks... I hate how the hatchery man throws them around like peanuts.... and bought only three Porcelain (color) D'uccles.  These are like Mille Fleurs (called Millies here) only the porcelain or bluish white color pattern.  Angel is one of these.  Our original plan was to take the two living chicks from the little henhouse, and candle the eggs left to see if any had viable chicks, then move Silka and those eggs to the nursing cage in the big henhouse.  Of course, we never got to it, so the three little chicks are alone in the nursing cage.  We are hoping it's too cold for the big snakes to wake up tomorrow.

Those mouse holes are on the other side of the wire from them, but the snakes use them for access, too.  I'm praying the steel wool I stuffed where the snakes came in prevents them from coming through again.  In the new henhouse we will have a better brooder cage.

 Here I am getting ready to make the first part of the first cut tonight after a wonderful steak and potato dinner Keith fixed while I was at church.  Notice I have the lovely Army sweatshirt on again... it was cold today.  Though I usually wait until Easter afternoon to cut, I could not do it this year, the pugs were having the grass-surf, and I was tired of stumbling on the huge patches of grass. 

Keith snapped this without telling me... I only cut part of the yard so the little girls could go out and run for a while.

I'm weird, I love to cut grass, which is good, because Keith doesn't.

He likes to build, though...

Here he is working on the fittings of the new henhouse about 7:30 tonight, already worn out from the cement-lifting.

He had to re-dig two of the holes, as our neighbor did not get them accurately two weeks ago, so there was quite a bit of concrete that had to be poured.

Yes, this henhouse will be enough off the ground that the mice cannot dig through, but will have to gnaw through rabbit wire to get in.  The chickens will be able to get underneath it to have shade from the hot sun of summer.  The white paint is preservative on the wood piers.

We're both good tired tonight, Keith especially.  He has bought me a new weed puller so I am going to get busy on the flower beds tomorrow and get those dandelions PULLED!

Night-Night, Bloggers!