How Can May be Almost Over?

Happier Times, for the most part. 

I'm glad for that! 

I was putting new oranges on the orange feeder the other evening, and looked down through the plants... there were two eggs in the garden bed! 

(see the spilled jelly?) 

Chickens! 

I didn't know when they had been laid, but the raccoons found them that night and left shells. 

I was not feeling very kindly towards them the next night.  You see, last Sunday I planted all these planters and lick tubs.  I am trying to save some money this year, and I planted seeds I already had... plus some packets I got at the feed store.  I love wildflowers so planted two tubs of them.  We had rain on Monday and the seeds germinated right away. 

Three days later, I unthinkingly let the hens in the yard, and while I was in watching the five PM news, the hens scratched out most of the tubs.  I could have strangled them. 

I have replanted, but they are now captive on their own side of the yard until the flowers are up and blooming. 

Plants are so expensive this year, so I bought exactly one hanging basket and then bought some petunias and divided them and planted three baskets I saved from last year. 

My iris have come and gone already, the whites are still blooming a little. 

I had many more in the past, and my goal is to re-do this bed and plant a bunch in the fall. 

These two took up residence in the big hen house for a week... there are two heads there, one is on the left.   They are gone now, it got cool again... but I am watching for them. 

The four cochin babies are in a secure pen, but I was worried they would get Pip, the little silkie hen. 

The cochin babies are looking GREAT.  I changed their open bowl of water out for a conventional water fountain about an hour ago, and they fled to the other end of the pen in fright.  I'm going out in a few minutes to check and make sure they understand they can drink still.  That open bowl got too dirty, too fast.   My gosh, they are good looking babies, there is a cockerel and three pullets. 

My next goal is to get them outside in a secure pen during the day, and I'm going to be talking to Ben about that this week. 

About a month ago, some good friends gave me a gift certificate to a farm store I had not used recently. 

I stopped in there because they carry Kalmbach feed.  

My gosh, folks.  I got a bag of Kalmbach layer feed, and I have to tell you, all joking aside... the eggs I am getting have great shells and I am getting six to nine eggs a day out of my aged hens.  I am stunned at the size and quality of the eggs.  I am ready to get another bag, and am going to go over tomorrow and get it.  I am so happy with it. 

You will have to enlarge this and squint... there is a raccoon running on the ground... and one on the moveable platform Ben made for me last summer, cleaning up the bird seed.  I will say that I am not being invaded as I was before by thirteen or fourteen a night, but they are still around. 

It does not help that my yard light is not working about half the nights, and it is pitch black outside once night falls.  I called about it once, and am going to call again on Monday. 

The hanging finch feeders are just in front of the camera hanging on the porch rail. 

I have NO clue why the camera took rosy pictures for an entire day, but here I am doing what I will be doing all summer long... cutting the grass.  I am alternating between north and south sides of the yard, tomorrow is the south again.  

This makes Cat Number Four in the shop. 

However, Mama has disappeared again.  She was gone about three weeks ago for five days... I have not seen her now since last weekend. 

This guy, whom I call Bruce Wayne, has been in the shop several mornings, including this morning, when I went in to feed. 

UH HUH. 

I sent that to a rescue friend and titled it "The Camel has come into the Tent". 

My boy Bob does not like him.  At night I sometimes hear cats fighting, and I know who it is. 

Bob is neutered, and I can't get near enough to Bruce to see if he is. 

My little Teenie the Meanie is still in the barn... she is so small but does not like ANYONE.  

She likes me, and she liked Mama okay, but Cleo lives in the barn, too, and Teenie does not like her. 

I have not been seeing any skunks in the barn in the last three weeks... but this long-legged raccoon has been in there multiple nights, and two possums, one small, one large.  

The warming light is off for the summer, though the Kuranda bed is still in there. 

Bruce likes the Kuranda. 

 

The ewe on the right was born here, Nugget... though that is not what she is called now.  

Her dam is here too, Fluffy, though that is not her next to Nugget.  Neither Nugget or her mom have ear tags. 

Flicka, the Dorper sheep that had been mine, died during the past winter. 

I am enjoying watching the sheep again.  I am keeping their trough full and the plastic pool I keep under the walnut tree for them.  The ram was brought over this week... he's BIG and I am careful around him. 

The pasture needs to be mowed, the grass is too high for them, and I think it's beyond my mower now. 

I'm going to talk to Ben tomorrow about several things and I'll mention that. 

I can tell you there is no barn at their own home, and it just tickles me that they go in and out of the barn all day long here.  I love to see Nugget laying in the doorway, chewing her cud. 

I am going to have a ton of hollyhocks, very soon. 

My peonies smelled heavenly, I brought enough in for two vases, but they have all shattered in yesterday's rain.  There is little Wanda in the background.  

The Baltimore Orioles only stay here about a month, and I took my first pictures on April 20.  These guys, though, stay all year.  If they really are our loved ones visiting us, I have many.  I like to think so. 

Thank you all for your wonderful comments about Buddy.  The house seems so empty now, and Jester is alone.  Zoey and Buddy were wonderful dogs, and I was privileged to have them for a while... but I think Jes and I are going to take a break for a while. 

Spring, Glorious Almost Spring

Yes, that is Almost Spring, as we have had a blast of wintry weather this last week. 

After three days of rain and clouds, we have sun today, thank heavens, or your blogger was about ready to give up the ghost.  

Bulbs are raising their heads, and buds are trying to open.  We do have some rain in the forecast this coming week, and I wish it were going to be a little warmer, but Jax, my grandson, who will be on vacation, will be working getting my yard ready for spring with me. 

This is the eighteenth year I have been here, and seen this daffodils come up.  You see the tree has grown so much that the box someone built around it has burst.  Oscar, my heart dog min pin, is buried under this tree.  

The people here directly before me were a father and two sons... I doubt they planted them, so I am grateful to someone in the far past for this spring surprise every year. 

This is the treeline of the 26 acre undeveloped piece of land directly across the road from me.  Before I moved here, there was a fire on it, but as you see, it has grown back and is nearly impenetrable.  I am told there is only enough water on it for one house, and we have fought as neighbors to not see it developed as a strip mall OR a fueling point for the local propane coop.  

At night, I often hear coyotes there. 

A week ago, I heard coyotes on both sides of me, haunting at 3 AM.  Several of my friends asked me to record them at that time, and I would, except I invariably forget to grab the phone when I take the dogs out.  This morning at 1:30, I heard a few calling to each other from "The Wild Area", as I call it. 

There is a communications tower on this land, and it brings in 800.00 a month rent, and a local realtor is the owner now.  It scares me that it will be developed with something totally inappropriate for the neighborhood, but we have banded together three times to fight developments... one was a putting green!  

Something cool happened here this week. 

Last November, a tree man who had worked here before stopped by to give me an estimate.  There had been a storm the night before, and I had a walnut with numerous hanging branches over my old hen house.  Parats (his name) was kind enough to climb up and pull them all down, and his sons stacked them neatly for me. He gave me the estimate then, for the work I wanted done in the pasture. 

I had decided to trim under many trees, and eliminate some saplings that were getting out of control. 

Six weeks ago, he called me one day to see if they could work that afternoon, but I was away from home. 

This week, he called to see if they could come Wednesday.  I said YES. 

(it was only a half day's work for them, so they were fitting me in). 

They brought in three big vehicles. 

I had two mulberry trees that had so many big branches down that I could no longer cut under them. You see one almost down on the left, and there were many more.  These guys cut them up, threw them in the wood chipper, and then raked under both trees, it looks like a park down there. 

The white thing you see is boards from my raised beds, they are on the brush pile.  I can actually SEE the brush pile from my porch now, because all the branches are gone. 

They also took down about ten big saplings that were going to be problems, three were in the rings of these trees. 

They painted everything with Tordon. 

Those trees where you see the man working had branches so low I had trouble cutting underneath them. I am so grateful to get them removed and painted over. 

The whole operation was not without drama, though... as the big truck came out, he became stuck in the mud in the gateway.  If you squint, you can see there is a winch on the front of the truck, and it was being slowly winched out.  The crazy thing was, nothing got stuck UNTIL they got to the gate, and the pasture was soft from the rain we have been getting. 

I have a highly and I mean HIGHLY rutted gate right now that will take months to heal.  But, I am indebted to Forest Keepers Tree Service for another job well done! 

The week before, Good Neighbor Troy came over with his Kubota, and carefully pulled into the sheep yard and pushed into a pile all the boulders that had become embedded in the ground and prevented me from mowing well in there.  While we were in the Big House, the renter here had put two hogs in there.  They had taken the piled boulders in the middle (for our goats) and spread them out, and some became buried.  It was almost impossible to cut in there, and even the sheep could not keep the grass trimmed. 

Troy also moved a huge boulder at the back of the house that made me swerve out of my cutting line, and another on the side, and both moves will make it so much easier to cut this summer.  

Troy picked up three huge engineered posts that had become embedded in the ground on the pad for the Barn That Was Never Built, and moved them down to the brush pile. 

I don't know what I did to deserve such good friends. 

Teenie is back to sleeping in the wood stove.  She is the most-picked on cat here, and very tiny.  She is one of my favorites.  I had her neutered by a local rescue a year ago. 

We went from 70's back to thirties this week, and Wanda has been sleeping in a nest box again.  She and Coco hurry to get in when I lock everyone up at night, Wanda in the Big Hen House and Coco in the old hen house. 

I started some flower seeds, but nothing like as many as I started vegetables and flowers last year.  These are out in the shop. 

The Egg Dam is slowly breaking.  Chickens lay less in the winter, with the shorter days. 

On Wednesday, I got six 18 month old chickens.  They are production reds, meaning hybrid layers designed to lay a lot of eggs for a year or so, and then be replaced.  

They are in the old hen house with Singleton, the rooster and four other hens. 

I have not seen a huge outlay from them yet, but it is early days, and my seven original red hens have begun laying again. 

This is Sunday, and so far, I have eight... and there was a hen on a nest with at least two under her, and another hen with one. 

I also have not checked here yet. 

Can you see the hen?  I have to get on my hands and knees to get the egg out, and so help me, if there is something in there that goes for me, that's IT! 

This is the doghouse that the possum died in in December, no one has been using it, until this hen. 

I found a lot of blood in the shop one morning, and other spots in the garage. 

(That's the beautiful Cleo) 

This guy turned up with a swollen paw, and then a wound that was leaking blood. 

Bullseye was NOT happy to go to the vet, and let me know in no uncertain terms. 

His wound is healing... the vet thinks he was bitten.  He has all his shots, so got a two week antibiotic shot to get him over the hump.  The leg looks much better.  

I am so grateful for blue skies today, the days of clouds were getting me down. 

Can you see the moon between the trees? 

I hope the weather is calming down whereever you are reading this.  

 

What About Them Chiefs!!!!

Here is a reminder that raccoons are scary little critters if you keep chickens... or cats.  I notice the cats give them a wide berth. 

There's another Disney creature that will kill your chickens in a flash if it has a chance. 

That being said, I try to live in harmony with all of the creatures here, including the skunks. 

It finally happened.  

I went out on Sunday morning, the 12th, and found Susie gone.  My gosh, she was a beautiful hen, a Speckled Sussex.  She was very old though, and I had a suspicion that even though she kept going through the bitter cold nights we had had, it was weakening the older birds.  My oldest rooster, Ferdie, father of Singleton and Buddy, is not going to make it much longer, I fear, and has quit trying to go out. 

However, on Friday, a good day, I went out to the hen house about 2 PM, and could not find Susie inside and really got scared, because my fear is that she would weaken and hide outside. 

Lo and behold, she was out with the other girls in the sunlight, pecking around. 

She had the most beautiful coloring and musical trill, and I miss her "talking" to me whenever I was around her.  

There was still some icy snow in between the hen houses yesterday, and you can clearly see the footprints of the possums and raccoons that passed through.  There is a heated bowl of water there. 

This came up in my memories today, nine years ago.  Let me just say that this was among the best memories Keith and I could have had here.  These four little goats brought us so much pleasure.  That's Delilah by the door, Winny and Windy in the middle, and Kelly at the back.  It broke my heart to give them up when we moved into the big house, when Keith got sick. Delilah bonked the front door until I came to it to see what they wanted. 

I wish... I wish I were stronger and younger, and I would have goats again! 

We had three inches of miserable wet snow on Thursday.  It had already started to melt by the time I got Bullseye, who had jumped up on the big walnut stump. 

It is 58 right now, and we are supposed to get rain and wind tomorrow.  I can take the rain, it's the doggone wind that gets me. 

This is Alien.  He is the newest.... he has been lurking around the corners for the last three months.  I honestly think he belongs to someone because he disappeared during the bitterest of the cold. 

He hangs around in the late afternoons and evenings. 

This is my girl Teenie.  Imagine trying to tell them apart across the yard.  Luckily, Teenie sleeps mostly on the porch now. 

Teenie and all the other cats here are neutered. 

I walked out the front door to see this weird scene last night.  

That's Mama, and Bullseye, on one corner, and Alien across the door opening facing them.  They are at the big hen house.  I have no clue what was going on, I think they were all trying to intimidate each other.  Mama and Bully are allies, though. 

For six weeks, there have been no coyotes in my pasture, though I have heard a great pack of them twice, and last night there was another chorus.  

I literally have not seen one on my property. 

Imagine my surprise when I went outside at dusk last night to do something, and caught movement. 

I grabbed the big camera. 

It quickly turned and trotted away. 

The rotisserie carcasses and any dead birds (and there have been several lately) are being put elsewhere for the scavengers to get.  

My big foster boy, Buddy, laps over so I got another bed for him.  He has really stopped eating as much as he was, and is sleeping a LOT.  I think age is catching up with him and it will be months. 

He has just been the best old boy ever. 

That's my other foster fail, adopted... Zoey. She has appointed herself guardian of the farm,  and she does a good job.  She does chores with me almost every night. 

My road, February 12th, 2023.  

That's my henhouse on the left, the big one and the little, and my shop/barn left of them. 

Won't be long before we start greening up. 

Chiefs gear modeled by my great grandson, Wyatt. 

He's a big fan! 

It was a good game, and a nail biter to the end.  This city has gone crazy! 

  Thursday

Cats and More

Look at this glorious sight I took yesterday, Sunday the 5th!  

I only had the smaller Canon in my hand, not the big guy (Nikon) with the long lens... and I was taking pictures of the many geese flying over. 

I realized when I came in that that was a line of Trumpeter Swans! 

I had seen a picture posted earlier last week in the county and asked where they had been seen, but did not get an answer.  Well.. now I know... over my own house!  

Oh, there were plenty of geese, too. 

I'm glad I got the pictures last night because even though it is 65 degrees right now, 

the wind is blowing steadily at 25 mph, with gusts up to fifty.  I can hardly walk in it, and the chickens are hiding under the big hen house. 

Even the dogs who would normally have stayed out for an hour or two are here in the house with me, it was so hard for them to walk. 

This little critter is Teenie the Meanie, only the only one she is mean to now is Mama.  She and Mama have never gotten along.  Teenie has shifted from the shop (my barn) to the house porch.  

Coco, the black cat, sleeps in the old hen house and Wanda in the big hen house.  Teenie is sleeping on the porch now in a dog house.  Or... sometimes in the dog house.  I have found her curled up in a porch chair numerous nights.  I know she goes in the shop sometimes at night, because I see her on camera in there, but... Mama is in there. 

She is not afraid of the dogs, but Zoey does still bark at her.  Zoey has a vendetta against Coco, I don't know why. 

This, my friends, is why I have to change out the water in the bowl in the shop almost daily.  The doggone raccoon gets in almost every night, and takes a bath in the heated water.  I almost don't blame him.  I lock up all the cat food but there are always scraps and he and a couple of possums go in and out. 

This is a very badly lit picture, but here is another view of the shop at night... Mama cat is on the left getting a drink from the bowl... and a possum is looking at you from the deep straw in the big dog house in there.  I had noticed a deep depression, and I knew Cleo and Mama were sleeping up high... the possum must curl up frequently and rest at night.  We had frigid nights as recently as last week... now we have a string of more temperate weather with nights in the twenties.  I actually disconnected the two heaters in there to give my bill a little rest .  I unhooked the heat lamp in the first picture but then turned it back on when I realized Cleo used  the bed off and on.  

I am getting a little worried about my beautiful Buddy.  He went to the rescue's doctor three weeks ago and had a senior panel run, and everything looked good.  However, he has slowed WAY down since then.  It takes him a long time to cross the yard, and sometimes he has to lay down and rest for a while.  

I have a ramp out in the shop which I am going to try to carry over this evening and set up on the patio steps, but I have only ever had one dog that would use it.  We will see if he does.  The steps on the east side of my porch are not big... and he can still do them easily.  

The other things that worries me is that he is only eating about a third of what he was eating. 

He has been the gentlest, sweetest foster boy.  I hope we have some time left. 

He puts himself in his crate all the time (the door is open)... he spent almost the whole day in there yesterday and sleeps in at night sometimes, though he has a soft bed.  When it is really cold out I turn the little heater on... it is on the left in that picture, and I know the heat feels good for him.  

Cleo is sleeping in Fritzi's old bed in the shop.  She always looks mad.  It took two years for Cleo to let me touch her, and she is currently shying away again if I come too close.  She is spayed, don't worry. 

Bullseye, for some reason, hates Cleo.  I have to lock him up when I do chores. 

I think Bullseye is also feeling a little under the weather.  He spent most of the day inside yesterday and is behind me right now as I type this.  I have made him a bed on top of Buddy's crate (he just went in it) and he is curled up going to sleep.  I foresee some visits to the vet in our future.  He has had all shots and is neutered... I am hoping it is nothing serious. 

Wanda.  She loves her little nest bed. 

What I see when I do chores every night.  Zoey has to go... she cracks me up. 

It was cold that night and she had her little sweater on.  

My boys. 

Beautiful Susie is still alive,  even after last week's bitter weather. 

She is inside today, I think the wind was too much for her. 

I lost my sweet little Silkie hen, Mary.  She suddenly looked terrible, all hunched over.  I checked to make sure her vent was not closed with poop... it wasn't.  Chickens are prey animals and they do not show you they are sick until they are almost gone.  This was Mary's last night, she was gone when I went out in the morning. 

Poor little Pipsqueak looked for her everywhere.  I tried letting him loose with the big birds but he got beaten up a couple of times, so now I am carrying him in and out to his little pen. 

I am going to buy a few hens for the Ag Hall, and I'll try to find a little hen I can put with him. 

Gosh, it's 3:14, I just realized.  I need to wind this up and get ready to do chores.  I am trying to still lock everyone up by four.  I think they will be glad to go in tonight!  

Cleaning hen houses will soon be on the bill, the little hen house, despite it's having been cleaned totally in October, is a disgrace.  My grandson Jax will be busy as soon as we are sure the weather is going to be better.  I am going to try fine shavings this time instead of straw. 

Sorry.... I HAD TO DO IT!!!

You can imagine what it is like here in the Kansas City metro area this week. 

Here we go, Chiefs!!!!