Old and New

The little ones hanging around the run.

I've been busy in the garden and with my chicken girls.  The little chicks have been enjoying pleasant days outside in their run, and evenings back inside in their brooder for warmth.  The big chicks have been busy, they left off laying for the winter and it took a while for them to resume, but they have bounced back with plenty of spring!

Looks like no one collected yesterday!!

There are beginnings in spring and there are endings.  Our crab apple trees is aged, which makes it so spectacular, but last night we had heavy rain and winds and it lost a limb.  One more chore to add to the list.

Flower bed by the driveway, needs some serious attention.

The apple trees we planted shortly after we moved in are just now maturing to the point of producing apples, if the deer will let it happen.  

Dwarf Liberty Apple Tree

Brassicas with floating row covers to keep out harlequin beetles and cabbage loopers.

Mixed very baby greens, salad in two weeks!!

Quince

Love this color!

Athena supervising my photography.

Ursula, curious, but camera shy.

I was recently asked why I don't write about my cats much and I present to you Exhibit A

Most of their action occurs between 10 PM and 1:30 AM, usually involving hockey with a plastic Easter egg that clatters on our wood floors , or else kitty opera.  At that time of day, I am usually not in the mood to take cute videos.  Their days, at 12 years old next month, involve aerobic napping, hard core snoozing, and, once in a while, illicit tuna mooching.

A $400 Fart and More

For a while there i was having trouble thinking of what to write about, after all every good story needs a bit of conflict, a problem to solve--a little excitement, well, it just wasn't there to write about.  Last week however, there was a little too much.

Last Tuesday my daughter had an orthopedist appointment in Baltimore, she inherited my unfortunate gene contribution and ended up with scoliosis (curvature of the spine).  I spent several adolescent years encased in a barbaric plastic structure called a scoliosis brace, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, especially on a hot, humid day.  So, the day the pediatrician looked up at me and said that she detected minor scoliosis, I had to swallow the giant lump in my throat to tell her that two people in the previous generation have it.

Suddenly, I'm hauling my previously healthy as a horse kid for x-rays and specialist appointments.  Tuesday was the day.  I was dreading it.  My experience was not stellar as a kid.  I remember going into the scoliosis clinic at Rhode Island Hospital thirty some odd years ago.  I remember starting the day with x-rays and then sitting for hours waiting on uncomfortable chairs with my brace biting into me and my legs going to sleep.  If I didn't know that I missed near full days of school to do this, I would chalk it up to my memory blowing it up bigger than it was, but I remember.  I remember getting hungry at my school lunch time, knowing that it could be several more hours until I would get a chance to eat, because there was no way to know when they were actually going to call you into the examining room. 

 

I knew that I sometimes waited an hour and a half inside the examination room in my little open backed outfit, freezing (according to what I've read recently us redheads have a mutated gene that makes us more sensitive to heat and cold), hoping the doctor would come, so that I could get dressed.  Only once do I remember the doctor coming in quickly, I was undressed and didn't even have my open backed outfit on. He opened the door and walked right in with four or five medical students.  I was horrified.  I was five foot ten, maybe 110 lbs and about 14 years old--and in walks a class while I'm naked.  No "Excuse us." or anything, I couldn't even speak. The class entered and then the doctor with his creepy handlebar mustache asked if it would be okay if they came in.   They took my silent rage as assent.  I still get angry thinking of the scene.

Now it came to be my daughter's turn.  I don't think either of us slept well.  We seemed in super-slow-mo getting ready and needed to run around a bit near the end.  Fifteen minutes before we were due out of the door I woke the dog up, so that I could feed and walk her.  She has never liked mornings and seemed especially sluggish.  When she walked into the light of the kitchen, I think I screamed, or at least stifled one.  She was bloated like an engorged tick.  Her legs looked like little sticks trying to bend around her huge belly.  She struggled to walk.  She was trembling and her eyes appeared full of pain.  A day and a half before she had again attempted to eat the upholstered chair that matches our couch, the vet calls it a dietary indiscretion.  I feared that some of the foam had become lodged in her system or that she had developed bloat, which could be fatal.

 

 

I rushed into the office to google the location of a local emergency vet, all the while trying to figure out how I was going to leave for the appointment in Baltimore and get the dog to the vet at the same time.  The emergency vet had already left for the morning and the wouldn't be anyone there to help her for two hours.  My dog's regular vet would open in forty-five minutes, but I was supposed to leave in fifteen minutes.  I called, the answering machine picked up.  My husband was at his doctor's office, not sure if he had strep.  

 

My daughter, watching my dialing frenzy, suggested that I call our neighbor and friend who pet sits for us to see if she could take Stella.  She said she could after she got all of her kids on the bus, knowing I had a back up plan I felt a little better.  I decided to see if I could get the dog in before regular vet hours and drove her to the vet, which was right down the street.  I knocked and they let me in, I convinced them to take the dog because I had to get to Baltimore for a specialist appointment.  My daughter stood there in the vet's office looking stunned, terrified and hadn't had the opportunity to comb her hair after coming out of the shower.  She had a giant mass of red frizz, dark black circles under her eyes and was on the edge of a sob.  I don't think the vet techs thought I was taking her to the orthopedist.

By the time I checked the dog in, Stella already looked thinner, she was moving around better, she still wasn't right, but she seemed better.

We headed out the door.  We needed gas.  We hadn't had breakfast, it was sitting sitting ready on the counter at the house.  We had used all the the extra time I had put into the schedule for us to get lost in Baltimore, to find the parking garage and the wander through the maze of hospital corridors.  There was not time for an error.  We stopped at Mc D's for breakfast, with my food allergies I can only eat the hash browns (and from how I felt later, I fear I may be mistaken on that point).  I pumped the gas and we quickly continued on. Traffic was light.  The GPS took us through all of the worst neighborhoods in Baltimore, so that we had a lovely mother/daughter talk about poverty, inequality, and industrial decline.  

 

We parked without a hitch, found the office on the first try and checked in using the electronic kiosk right about on time, somehow.   We waited for a few minutes and were told the the staff member we were to see was not in.  Would we like to reschedule or wait a little to be squeezed in to another staff member's schedule? Of course, we waited.  I was not going to attempt another re-run of that morning.

The appointment was fine, they even paid for our parking, because they made us wait an hour and ten minutes.  

 

The day was on the upswing.  We were able to get on the highway toward home and call to check on the dog.  My husband was at home, the dog was still at the vet.  She appeared to be okay, they had x-rayed her and found nothing and the swelling had gone down.  She appeared to have had a nasty case of gas and just needed to pass it.  Yes, it was a $400 fart.  

My daughter and I stopped for authentic burritos for lunch and headed home.  When the adrenaline left my system that afternoon, I napped for three hours.  That was our Tuesday.

Thursday, I came home and noticed two of our chickens in the yard, but I didn't see the third.  Ursula and Athena were standing jammed inside a lilac bush, looking ill at ease.  I went inside.

L to R Paisley, Ursula and Athena

My daughter's bus pulled up a few minutes later.  The dog made her usual "she's home!!" noises, but they changed, became deeper, a little disturbing sounding.  I was walking down the hallway toward the front window when my daughter burst in the front door sobbing.  Paisley, the Barred Rock, was next to the driveway, I had been looking off into the distance for her, I had missed seeing her body, half plucked and fully eviscerated, near the turn in the drive.  A hawk, raccoon or something had caught her.  I buried her behind the shed, while my daughter, still in her jacket, sobbed face down on her bed. Paisley had been such a sweet thing.  She was my favorite chicken and she's gone.

It has been quieter this week.  I am thankful.

Bob and a Norse Love Goddess

I haven't written about chickens in a while, so the vicarious poultry keepers will get their time today.

We lost one chicken over the fall, Lucy, named after C.S. Lewis' character from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. She didn't sit on her perch for a few weeks, then one morning fell down the coop steps.  She died that afternoon.  She had always been the chicken apart.  The other three would scurry about in a little cluster and she would either be 20 feet behind or off somewhere else completely.  She was lowest in pecking order and Ursula made sure that she remembered that, body checking her away from the best snacks.

Athena is out pet chicken, she barely lays.  If this were a real farm she would have been soup long ago.
She is currently the lowest in the pecking order, and during the prime summer laying season she would lay a couple of times a week, maybe.  She has the most attitude though.  She makes it very clear that this snow was not requested and that she commands that we send it and the low temperatures back to Canada where they belong.  She resists being put into the chicken run every morning, wanting to stroll about, tempting fate and the neighbors' over-sized dogs.  Rules are for the other chickens.

The other two Paisley and Ursula, lay their share and a bit more.  Paisley is a homebody, who can usually be found within a few yards of the food dish, even if the gate is open.  Ursula has found every escape route available out of the run and will casually scratch about the yard in the afternoon.  She seems perfectly happy to hang out in the run in the morning, but late afternoons are for freedom.

This spring we are considering getting a few new chicks, since we are down one and one of the remaining girls doesn't pull her weight in egg production.  They are also really cute for two whole weeks.  My daughter has already named two, one will be Bob, not Bobbi Jean, or Bobbi Jo, or Bobbette, just a hen named Bob.  Bob is to be a Cochin, a basketball shaped chicken with feathered feet. She thinks it's funny, and well, it is.

The second will be Freya, after a a Norse love goddess whose carriage is pulled by two cats, a fitting name for our egg laying hen.  The question is: Will having Freya and Athena together cause a goddess power struggle?  My daughter believes that Freya should be a Wyandotte, but I'm not sold on it.

The third (you have to get several chicks at a time, they huddle to stay warm, if they can't huddle then they would probably die.) is unnamed.  I'm thinking she should be a ginormous Brahma and we should give her a Hindi name.  My daughter doesn't want a Brahma, but won't say why.

Any ideas for chicken breeds or funky names (we don't do ordinary)?

About all of this my husband just shakes his head and says, "You really want to do this????"  Thinking of all of the tears from the fire, and the lost girls now buried under the quince bush and behind the shed and all of the work and hassle involved in keeping the little chicks alive.

I guess it's like what they say about childbirth, that you just forget the pain and do it all over again.

Writing is good, it raises little dust and doesn't involve cleaning solutions or rubber gloves.

A rainy day is  perfect for writing, it makes me put off the million things to do outside and face the million things inside that I need to do and wish to avoid. Writing is good, it raises little dust and doesn't involve cleaning solutions or rubber gloves.

Most of my final order of plants came in on Friday.  The dwarf pie cherries and horseradish will be arriving in next week, but the rest came.  The postal delivery person decided that this particular package needed to be stuffed between the black metal mailboxes, out of sight from the house on a warm sunny day.  Usually, she will open the car window and drop the boxes on the walk (if you are sending me something delicate, make sure to use Fedex or UPS, because the last few feet of their journey to my house can be pretty rough on a package).  A neighbor spotted the package jammed between the searing hot mailboxes and was going to leave it until he saw that it was labelled "PLANTS". He kindly brought it to our door.  We'll see how everything fared in the heat in the next few weeks.

I planted the sand cherries right away on Friday, their bed was set up and ready.  Then we planted 75 everbearing strawberries on Saturday, it was a little late for them to go in, but I think they will be okay.
The potatoes and the roses will wait until after the rain.

The pepper plants are one by one popping from their seeds many, many weeks after I planted them.  I have enough hot pepper plants for the year and may have to buy only one or two sweet pepper plants.  One eggplant seed made it.  Now I just have to baby the seedlings.  I bought some Zambia hot peppers too, just to experiment, they came up the best of all.

Babies!

Pesto-to-be

I am especially glad that a couple of the Aji Limon and Aji Cito seeds have sprouted.  I love the internet, I can find things that I would have never been able to find twenty years ago. I had been given some peppers that I adored from the ethnobotany garden plot at the University of Florida, they had a lemony flavor layer and these two Aji's are my best guesses as to what those peppers were.  I found them on a website called Hell Hot Peppers .
I put the tray of the remaining un-sprouted seeds in the cold frame outside, maybe a couple more will germinate. 

The really good news is a friend looked at the crab apple tree and said that it looked like sap suckers not woodpeckers doing the damage and again, I verified that on-line and it looks like we are going to be able to keep the beautiful tree!!  No bonfire necessary! Yeah!  We bought a very small crab apple tree, it is sitting in a pot waiting for its location, hmmmmmmmmmm.  This crab apple is supposed to be good for cider making, oh the projects that await us in the next few years!


The book Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds was recommended to me after a few of my posts about critters in the yard, luckily the library had it.  I just finished reading it.  The first part of the book was a synthesis of a few books that I read a few years back when I worked at the EcoTarium in Worcester, MA (Many of them are good reads, I'll put a list at the bottom of this post.), discussing suburban expansion, habitat change, habitat fragmentation and habitat succession--basically what happens to all of the critters that were here in pre-Columbian times when the European settlers chopped every thing down and hunted any food or fur bearing critter out of existence.   Then continues about how the abandonment of the farms of the East due to the opening up of better farmland farther west and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution allowed the trees to grow back creating a giant human populated forest.

My favorite quote from that part of the book is from John C. Gordon the former dean of the Yale School of Forestry, " If you looked down on Connecticut from on high in the summer, what you'd see was mostly unbroken forest.  If you did the same thing in late fall after the leaves have fallen from those trees, what you'd see was stockbrokers." Yup.

The next step is the reintroduction and legislation that protects all of these critters that are now over-populating many areas.  There are no predators to control these animals so there are no checks on the population. Leading to widespread Lyme disease, habitat destruction by over-grazing, beavers flooding streets, bears in the dumpsters, etc.

For example, I know that there is a forest corridor that goes directly behind my house through a ravine leading to a stream, I know that deer and other critters follow that corridor.  One more thing I know is that many of these animals do not make it across the street I live on, which has a high speed limit and heavy traffic flow.  All too often the scent of dead deer blows into the yard and gawky vultures circle above (Which was disconcerting when I started jogging two years ago after several years of inactivity-I did laps around the yard with the vultures circling above.  They seemed to be checking me out a bit too much).  When I am leaving the house from dusk to dawn, I am especially vigilant watching the forest edges for movement and the reflective eyes of deer.  I know they are there. I see the foot prints in my lawn. I see their eyes in the backyard. I hear them amble through the ravine as I garden (three in the last week).  I also know that the three lonely apples on the tree in the backyard were not eaten by any member of my family.

There are also fox, hawks, opossums, squirrels, crows, voles, moles and plenty more that I can't see at night.  The voles ate my parsley plant, again.  The park nearby has a huge (50+) black and turkey vulture population, they hang out by the dumpsters and sun themselves on the lawn.  It's kind of gross.


The book proposes some solutions, most of them are controversial in one way or another, depending upon your vantage point.  It was an interesting read.
______________
These are for the vicarious chicken keepers:

Athena is getting an attitude, she doesn't like the fence, so she flaps her way over it.

Ursula has become protective of her eggs, in the coop, outside the fence..

Paisley is the only chick who can't escape the fence, she just can't get the altitude.

Book List:

Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England by William Cronon and John Demos (Sep 1, 2003)

Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History by Bunker, Nick (Apr 13, 2010)

THOREAU'S COUNTRY by Foster, David R. and Thoreau, Henry David (Jun 30, 2009) 

Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England by Mr. David R. Foster and Mr. John D. Aber (Apr 27, 2006) 

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape by Kunstler, James Howard (Sep 13, 2013) (very readable, time for me to re-read this one--sounds much drier than it is.) 

 

 

 

No Neck Dog, Chickens and the Slumber Party

A new development, it was warm for a few days before our weekly six inches of snow, it was enough of a change that as the snow melts it is exposing bright, spring-green grass.  A sign that we are headed in the right direction.

I've been too busy with other activities to do things like garden and whine about the weather.  My daughter turned 12 this past week, and with the birthday comes the inevitable slumber party.  I use the event as a way to kick myself in the behind to get some house cleaning done, despite the fact that I could name a few thousand productive things that I would prefer doing.  After a week of mopping, polishing, sorting, organizing, recycling and tossing, I then commenced baking, decorating and other hostess-y things.

About an hour and a half before the first guests were set to arrive and I was frosting the chocolate cake, the chickens made distressing noises by the kitchen window, Paisley flew up past the glass in a panic.  I rushed outside to find my neighbor's hugely overweight lab/pit mix, not quite a year old puppy trying to pounce on the girls.  Ursula cut out from the rest and he pursued, she found the gap in the garden fence and lost him for a moment, but then found herself cornered.  I sprinted out, coated with confectioner's sugar, and threw myself in between the two.  Shrieking at the top of my lungs, hoping my neighbor would hear me.  I kept telling the dog, "No!" and he would back off a bit, but he seemed mesmerized by what he perceived as giant, fluffy dog toys and seemed compelled to go back.  He didn't have a collar on, there was no handle to hold. I tried and tried to hold him, but he kept slipping from my grip. He pounced again and Ursula dodged, I snagged her, kneed the dog and sprinted to the coop.  Locked her in and the dog was on to seek out the next chicken.  My daughter came out of the house having heard me shouting. "No, Nooooo, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!", wearing socks, but no shoes, and tried to round up the others, but he just followed her and she didn't want to expose them, but we didn't want them out any more.  She kept his attention on the back steps while I ran for one of the leashes that groomers use. He let me put it on and didn't seem to mind and then whoosh, it was off and he was off.  I chased and caught him again and looped it again, but his neck was just as fat as his head and he slipped it again.  I did this several more times, until I decided to tie the leash around his neck. The whole time I was bellowing, "Where the H*ll is your owner?"  We got him to his owner when he called him, I was asking him to keep the dog in his yard, as my daughter went back to round up the rest of the chickens, Only to have Tank (the dog) escape again, he wouldn't come when his owner called.  He chased Paisley around the house as my daughter gave chase, shrieked and pushed him away--she probably weighs about the same as Tank, about 100lbs.  Paisley, smart girl, ran under the quince bush.  The dog pursued, but then discovered quince thorns and hopped around the perimeter.  In the mean time, I sprinted from the neighbor's yard, through the woods then across our yard to the quince bush,  captured the evasive chicken, kneed the dog again and blasted over to the coop with the dog in hot pursuit,  I slammed and latched the door right as his nose arrived.  He took off to find the other chickens, our neighbor, citing knee surgeries, was just now arriving in our back yard.  We finally were able to send Tank home, with a promise that he would either be on a lead or in the fence in the future and that he will wear his collar.  We gathered up the Buffs and put everyone in the run, with snacks and water.  Then my daughter and I had a good cry,straightened ourselves out and finished the preparations for her party.  I felt like I had used ever shred of energy available chasing and fighting off the dog.  The dog never seemed vicious, he had a goofy look on his face the entire time, listened to me, sometimes, and leaned up next to me for a pat when I put the leash on him.  He just seemed compelled by some force to pounce on the chickens.
 Just writing all this has been exhausting,  If I hadn't been in reasonable shape, we wouldn't have chickens anymore, there's no way in my old shape I could have done what I did.

An hour or so later, the cake frosted...the girls came, then ran around outside in the dark playing flashlight tag ( I don't know the rules, darkness, flashlights, shrieking and giggling are all required) for a couple of hours waiting for the late comers.  After that, they did the annual treasure hunt, per request of the birthday girl.  They followed my riddles around  the entire yard until they found this year's treasure, matching t-shirts and glow-in-the-dark fabric paint.  One was disappointed that it wasn't candy like last year, though the candy was set out on the snack table, I guess it is the joy of discovery.  Halfway through the hunt they discovered one can of silly string for each kid, of course, the obvious occurred.  My daughter realized the next day why adults have some reservations about silly string, as she picked most of it out of the lawn, so that the chickens wouldn't eat it.  (It appears that they don't even sense it, they walk right past, but who knew that?)

A friend lent me all the necessary equipment to turn the living room into the dance party zone: disco balls, lava and glitter lamps, a thing that shines different colored lights on the walls and rotates.  My husband's prized 1980's  stereo with giant speakers provided the music.  At about 9:30 one of the girls reclined in The Red Chair with her root beer and extolled the wonders of  this "the best party ever".

Between the cleaning, decorating, baking, dog catching, chaperoning and assorted other chores, I slept a good deal of the next day.  I still had time to get in a couple of runs to the horse farm to finish top dressing all of the trees planted in the last two years, just in time for the new ones to arrive, just in time for the weekly six inches of snow.  By looking at my photos from last year, our second and final snow was on March 25th and by April 9th the flowers in the garden and yard were starting to bloom.  I'm ready.

The Big Cardboard Box

Folks at the sculpture garden knew that I was interested in a big, thick box that was hanging around in storage.  It had been saved for some important purpose, but no one could seem to remember what it was, so they offered it to me.  It is for my garden, of course.  The weather having been dry and moderately cold, but not too cold, so I decided to attempt a garden expansion on Saturday.

The box, folded in half.

Cardboard is cheaper than weed cloth and will biodegrade into the soil, and it is so thick that it will last a long time. I unfolded the box and overlapped the edge with the raised bed I created last year.  The chickens have removed most of the straw mulch in their search for bugs and seeds.

The girls helped me line it up with last year's garden bed.

I then headed over to the horse rescue to get the necessary materials to make the raised bed. 

XB all loaded.

  To answer the question you are thinking, it smells like soil, it looks like soil...   A car load of manure doesn't look like all that much, but it is heavy.  The hood of the car points a bit higher once it is all loaded and I joke about driving a low rider.  (a song that my daughter plays in band)

One carload dumped onto the cardboard.

It took two loads to cover it reasonably well and a little bit more might be needed.

The girls inspected the two loads of manure.

All of it is now (Monday) coated with two inches of snow and a bit of ice, with lots more snow expected in the next few hours.
The seedlings are doing well under the lights, when the winter decides that it is done, they will be ready.

It is time to thin and fertilize them with a little fish emulsion, it is a good thing they are in the garage, that stuff is much more pungent than the manure ever is.

The trees  and bushes we ordered will be arriving within a few weeks!
___________
My stress over the Bay Bridge was unnecessary, there were about three cars on the bridge and virtually no wind.  It was the easiest ride over that thing ever, despite the snowflakes!

Fruit School (that's what the Extension office calls it) was interesting, it was great to find out more about the stink bugs, especially since there is supposedly some news of a bit of a die off due to the cold temperatures, but we will find out for sure in September, their boom season.  The frustrating part  of the lectures was one speaker had  a slide presentation that included material he had presented to the group the previous year, which he flicked through to get to this year's materials, but I really was more interested in the presentation he did last year than this year.  I hear that they are all posted on-line, I'm going to have to find it.

One thing I had never thought about was brought up, conventional farmers spray antibiotics on plants to kill certain diseases, I always thought about animals with  antibiotics, not plants.  Hmmmmmmmmm.

An Era Passing

An era in my life has passed.  After many years of dedicated service my bread machine kneaded its last loaf.  Eighteen years of mixing, kneading and baking peasant breads, pepper biscuits, Sally Lunns, challah, pizza dough and Pan de los Muertos it gave me and I shall remember it dearly.

I remember when I received it.  I was living in a little house out in the middle of the Salinas Valley in California.  One day the box appeared on my doorstep.  I wasn't expecting any package.  I hadn't ordered anything.  I was mystified by its appearance, until I opened it.

My mom had been singing the praises of home baked bread.  My dad thought she was crazy.  He did the calculations of how long it would take to pay off a machine by not having to buy bread and just rested his head in his hands and sighed.  That is, until he got hooked on freshly baked bread, and then he understood.

Now my mom was coming for a visit and she was not going to go two weeks without home baked bread.  The only issue I had with the machine initially was that no one else in the area was baking their own bread and the bread flour in the markets was so old that it was rancid.  One trip into the city fixed that and I was off!

That machine traveled all over the country with me, it crossed the nation to New England, it followed me to sticky Florida and then halfway back up the coast to DC Metro.

To be honest, the last couple of loaves weren't great, some of it was my fault, I was experimenting with wild yeast sourdoughs and it just wasn't working.  The monkey bread that I put in this morning was a pretty straightforward undemanding loaf, but a few minutes into the mix cycle I smelled the motor running too hot and noticed wisps of smoke rising from its vents.  Then I knew, it had come to its end.  The dough was completely unmixed and had to be mixed by hand.  I have spent the last couple of months trying to do a decent sourdough by hand (the loaves were very tasty, but like bricks), so I knew what had to be done to save the loaf.

Several hours later we mourned our old Black and Decker machine as we demolished the monkey bread (dinner will be very light this evening).

____

On another topic,  all four chickens laid eggs today, Ursula waded through the snow to get to her regular spot behind the bush, but the rest decided it was to cold for that and laid their eggs in the coop.

Paisley and Lucy fluffed up by the sand box.

Athena barely emerged from the coop all day.  Paisley and Lucy spent hours huddled together by the sandbox and Ursula the adventurer wandered about.
It is supposed to go down to 3 degrees tonight, the chickens have been given deluxe garage accommodations.

Fall, I think.

I heard my first public Christmas carol of the season yesterday, at the gas station.  It felt right in that it was crisp and cool, with a touch of winter in the fall air, but it was missing one thing--digesting turkey.  I prefer my Christmas season to be short and intense, the tree goes up a few days before Santa comes, cookies baked, traveling, wrapping presents, (all bought before the turkey comes on the scene, I hate to wait in lines and I like to have a choice) all that holiday cheer crammed into a week and a half.  Some folks like to start the holiday shortly after the kids return to school, but I don't belong to that club.  Unfortunately, we've had to bend the "no carols before the turkey" rule in the past few years. My daughter is in the school band and each year they have a winter concert featuring songs that the students have been practicing since September--so those chestnuts have already been audibly roasting in our house for a while.  Luckily, the chestnuts roast more beautifully each year.

The leaves peaked here this past week and are now starting to fade and drop, that must mean that it is time to start hauling manure again to make new raised beds in the front yard.  The back garden is too close to those walnut trees causing too much shade and juglone issues.  This past year the tomatoes all stretched laterally toward the sun, I'd tie them back and a few days later the new growth would be straining back in that direction. This coming year I won't fight it, they will receive the garden where the pumpkins went wild with full sun blazing above.  I will tote in soil for a new garden bed for the pumpkins over the next few months.

Snacking on millet

What eggs?

The chickens are enjoying their extended adolescence, they are due to start laying any day now, in fact, they might be laying and hiding their eggs from us, ignoring that lovely next box I installed for them.  They will be 24 weeks old tomorrow, according to the books and websites they can start laying anytime from 20-26 weeks, but there has been no sign of eggs.  They have started to make horrendous noises that sound like strangling geese, which chickens do during and after laying an egg.  I have searched to see if their are any little warm brown orbs awaiting us, but I have found nothing.

The girls are also enjoying all the millet that falls from the bird feeder. The birds are starting to discover it, but the squirrels will need to remove their fuzzy little behinds once in a while for the wild birds to have any chance of tasting the sunflower seeds.  The first winter we were here, we didn't see any squirrels, this year we are very nearly overrun with the critters.  Maybe it is because we have had two mild winters in a row, or maybe it is because I asked the neighbor kid with the BB gun not to use it on our property. (When we bought the house we had to replace two windows because BBs had damaged them.)

Three more "starting at 500K" houses have begun to be erected down the street. I have visited people who live in similar homes, they seem like giant caverns and are not very homey.  The ones I have seen have almost no furniture in them, so they seem that much more cavernous.   I find it interesting that the lower ceilinged rooms adjacent to the caverns have furniture and appear as if they are used, unlike the cavernous spaces. The practical New Englander in me thinks about the heating bills for cathedral ceilings. I am certainly glad that I won't be writing those checks.  The tree hugger in me thinks about the energy wastage associated with having those soaring ceilings and the real spacial needs of an average family.  The city planner in me thinks about the traffic that will be caused by the sprawling American landscape and the disconnected society caused by poor neighborhood design.  The farmer in me thinks about the loss of the farmland that the houses have usurped and that it would be cool if they landscaped with food bearing plants.  The mom in me thinks about how many more kids will be crammed onto my daughter's bus (which was an issue earlier this year), they forget when they set the bus capacity that each child will be bearing a 25 lb or more backpack and half of those students will tote band instruments three times a week.  I hope no one  in those new houses plays the tuba. It would still be better than the third world buses I have ridden with women carrying baskets of flowers or crates of chickens on their heads, with everyone packed so tightly that there was no chance of standees falling down if the bus stopped suddenly.
I digress, but my whole blog is one giant digression...

Chickens, Evolution, Ice Cream and Jackson Pollock

The chickens are starting to look like mini chickens, not dinosaurs with proto-feathers.

Ursula and Lucy

Athena

Even Paisley looks like a chicken now!

They have been free-ranging for chunks of time over the past few days, they are still cute and curious.

The science education enrichment project is underway, we've watched, as a part of what we call "dinner theater"( an occasional evening when we will pop in a video to watch over dinner)  Discovery School Evolution with Bill Nye. I've planted books in key spots around the house, so that she is likely to just browse through them.  My favorite, we eat out on the screened porch all summer, I placed the book I was reading out there and underneath I placed two books that I wanted her to look at, making sure that they hung out a bit and were visible. As she came out to eat breakfast I went in to get some juice, by the time I returned she had  opened one of the books and was leafing through it.  We discussed science topics over breakfast.  I went a little over the top and placed a couple in the bathroom, it was too obvious, especially since I won't permit her library books in the bathroom because they might get wet.  She mounted her "do as I say not as I do" protest this morning and I 'fessed up that I wanted her to read them.  I'll put a couple in the back of the car today, I guess I'm not all that subtle, but it works!!  I have been planting books that I want her to read in her room for years, usually while she is a bit too young for them.  They sit there for a year or two and eventually I will find her propped up on pillows on the couch reading them, they have been there so long that she doesn't realize that they are a plant.  Oh, I usually find these books at thrift shops and yard sales for about twenty-five cents each, so the investment isn't very great.

Next week, we are headed to the Natural History Museum, with the thrilling Metro ride first (and last), of course!  We're taking along a friend, whose parents have been given the heads up to the specific focus of the trip.  We'll have lunch in a deli off the Mall and probably stroll the Mall eating ice cream (those of us who can eat it, at least), no need to make it a forced march.  Maybe we'll step into the Hirshorn to see if they still  have the Jackson Pollock up. My daughter has decided that she loves Jackson Pollock, which is great, as long as she doesn't follow him  in his lifestyle.  Maybe we'll use some of the leftover house paint I have in the garage and create something Pollock-esque, I know the painting will match the interior of the house that way! We can run through the sprinkler to clean up.  I digress, but that is pretty much what the blog is about isn't it? My ramblings...

Chicks at Two Weeks

Two weeks ago yesterday we brought home some fluffy little chicks to form our flock of laying hens.  For all the vicarious poultry keepers out there, I am going to post before and after photos.  Cute fluffy chicks at about two days old versus the gawky critters we have now.

Let's start with The Goddess, who seems to be at the top of the pecking order in the group.

Athena:

Next Lucy, the lowest in the pecking order:

 

On to Ursula, who is looking a little rooster-like, uh-oh:

And finally Paisley:

They sure can be homely at this point.

They spent their first week and a half in my daughter's room, so that they would be picked up again and again, making them used to humans.  After their digestive tracts matured a bit, they became a bit too fragrant to share living space with us and have been moved into the garage,  In another week, they will be big enough for them to be put outside in their summer coop to eat bugs and weeds all day.  A couple of weeks after that they will free range a bit in the yard.

Gardening Breather

Japanese Maple

It is dumping rain outside, so I have put aside my efforts to get my garden in for the day.  I've made so many trips to the horse farm that I have lost count.  The slippery clay soil in my back garden has taken on a darker, more organic hue.  I am incorporating 8 inches of manure into the top 8 inches of soil and then the following year I am top dressing with even more manure, I started this process on a small part of the garden last year, but I didn't have a good source of manure.  The garden beds end up being raised. The paths are mulched with straw and as soon as the soil heats up a bit more (it has been a cool spring) the beds will be also.

Back garden, Egyptian onions, Kale, Collards, Cabbage, Strawberries and Potatoes.

First Strawberry of the season.

Last year, I mulched the paths and never quite got around to doing the beds, I was a bit distracted with other projects that came up with the new house, like painting most of the interior, including the forty year old kitchen cabinets.  When I emerged from my projects to get back to the garden, the weeds had won.  At that point, I would go out to weed for and hour or so and there would be a small cleared area in the jungle, by July 4th I had pretty much given up and was a bit embarrassed when the BBQ guests asked to see my vegetable garden.  Food production was very low.(photos taken this morning between downpours)

This year, I have been making an effort to spend an hour, if not two on the gardens each morning, some of that time is spent hauling manure and some of that is spend picking out those weeds while they are still tiny.  For the new front garden, I am using the lasagna method, laying layers of cardboard for  weed suppression and layers of organic matter on top.  I planted it with squash and cucumbers and within 24 hours the squirrels had unplanted it.  I replanted the plants and most of them survived, but I lost a few Armenian cucumbers.  I am currently extending it bit by bit, so that I can plant pumpkins and watermelons.  I still need to build a trellis for the cukes and small pie pumpkins...

The fig's first leaves!

On the chicken front, I called the feed store to confirm that the Buff Orpington chicks would be in on Friday and the gentleman told me that in  a couple of weeks four different breeds were due in and he had no knowledge of Buff Orpingtons, even though he was the same person who told me about them in the first place.  The store manager called me back, right as I was typing this line, the Buffs and Barred Rocks will be in late next week and we may be able to score an Australorp in June, if not we'll get another Barred Rock.

Flower bed in front with plants imported from MA last year.

The Cherry Blossom Pink Bubble

Spring has arrived in full here, the weeping cherry is in full bloom, the crab apple is just a few rays of sunshine off of blooming, the dogwood has and the quince, the early riser has peaked.  The seeds have germinated (except the cantaloupe and eggplant) and some seedlings have their second set of leaves.  The cold frame is full to protect them all on chilly nights, all is quiet and growing.

After yesterday's event in Boston, it makes me feel like I'm living in a bubble.  The closest thing to violence around here yesterday was when the cats decided that the dog had done something horribly wrong, just standing there in the kitchen, then on some cue they growled, hissed and chased her to the living room.  The only things that make the bubble tremble are the military aircraft from a nearby base that fly overhead from time to time and the groups of Harley's headed for the beach..

I've walked through Copley Square along Boylston Street, I've taken the T from Kenmore to Park, many times, it is a place with shiny buildings and Copley Plaza with goods so expensive that I was afraid to even look because I felt like I had "poor college student, raised in the woods, quite clueless" written on my forehead..  Those memories are many years ago (mostly the 80's), almost a different lifetime it seems.  I'm sure that many others would prefer to remember Boylston Street that way.

Far from Boston in my little bubble, we know that there is a man with a bad haircut in Korea posturing about nuclear war, we know that the son of a friend finished the marathon well before the blast and left, we know about all the earthquakes and crooked politicians, but we are in our bubble and we also know that the local feed supply store will be receiving a shipment of Buff Orpington chicks and maybe some Barred rocks on May 10th and we think that temporary quarters could be established for a few little pullet puff balls. We also know that a box with a gooseberry plant is due any day and that the apples and the rest of the blackberries should be here mid-next week.  There is much darkness in the world, but here in the bubble it is cherry blossom pink.

The coop door was left open the other evening, Sunny and one of the boys disappeared that night.  We are hoping that they eloped and are having a good time in Vegas, but we do have our doubts.  We spent a good chunk of the next day searching for them, but there wasn't a trace.

A week earlier we had e-mailed someone on Craigslist about a posting for Rhode Island Red chickens to replace the pullet who died on-route to our house, she finally responded the day Sunny and the boy disappeared.  Two days later (yesterday) I drove over to choose two pullets.  The sellers had their own mix of critters, at least three golden retrievers, one a puppy who walked between my feet tripping me as we headed to the coop.  Their cat was lazing in the sun and their horse hanging out in the small horse barn.  The coop was tucked under the wide barn overhang and didn't seem substantial enough for raccoon protection.    Inside were  fifteen pullets, one was already named by their seven year old daughter, so she was off limits, but I could have the pick of the rest.  Some were dark red and others more blond/buff.  I chose two chicks with dark feathers and mischievous looks in their eyes.  They both had clearly been well socialized by the children, they settled in my arms within a few seconds. They were officially named as they were chosen, the darker one is Scarlet, who despite her name seems calm and collected and the one that is slightly lighter is Phebe.

Scarlet

Phebe

They bore the ride home well and are now being hazed by the rest of the flock in our coop, luckily they are close in age and size, so they should integrate into the group in a few days.

Now it seems I need to review HTML, because the formatting for the blog is not working the way I want it to.  Please excuse the ill-arranged pictures, but here are portraits of the flock as they look today.  There are no cute fluffy chicks anymore, there are mini-chickens and gawky-ducks who are in large but not all feathered yet.

Lily and a boy

Olive

Amelia

Sebastian

Boy

Kiwi hiding in tall grass