On the ninth day of christmas my true love gave to me: one bushy Santa Claus, one brown acorn, a green wreath, a chipper squirrel, a chilly snowman, a mischievous cat, a minty candy cane, one pale pink ornament, and a russet bird.
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We've had teenage chickens for many months now, and finally someone has laid the first egg! I suspect it is the speckled grey hen, since I think she's the only one that lays white eggs. I need to get a bigger container for all of my first eggs, because this one won't fit in there.
We have one extraordinarily well-fed bobcat in our neighborhood. When I brokered a deal with my friend a few months ago to raise some chicks to teen-age size, we still had five hens. As of this morning we were down to three. Enter: The New Girls.
Six new hens. Two blue andalusians, two rose comb brown leghorns, a black sex link, and a silver laced wyandotte. Unfortunately the coyote found my americanas especially tasty so I only have one blue egger left. These girls are going to spend the next month in the coop with no outside time, and then I'll start to let them out and see what happens.
It's now that I'm very happy that I built a coop big enough for them to fly around in so I don't have to feel too bad about locking them in. They will just have to survive on a steady diet of layer pellets, scratch mix, and all of the delicious greens from our garden and leftover produce. Poor things!
The boys enjoyed some time in the sunshine while I got the new chicks settled in.
One of the best things about a house full of infants: lose and hour, gain an hour, whatever. It's all the same to me! I have very little idea of what time it is these days. I can tell that it's dark outside a lot more now, as we tumble into the fall season. Usually it's also the season of ibuprofin, when I spend hours and hours in the yard putting plants to sleep for the winter and raking some of the 5 billion enormous leaves from the broadleaf maples that surround the house. This year though, the boys forced me to hire a yard service. Besides the boys, that's the best thing to come out of all that bedrest. I never would have been able to justify spending the money on it. Well truth be told I really did enjoy the crazy workout of the fall season. But there's absolutely no time for it now.
chickens enjoying the fall sun
Where I was going with this is: our yard has never looked so awesome. The wind blows and the leaves fly and on Tuesday afternoons I look outside and it's immaculate. Last week they trimmed down all of the ferns and hostas.
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Cuteness persists indoors as well.
First entry in the category of "completely unsafe locations that an infant will happily sleep, thus necessitating constant supervision but it's not really that bad because the child is asleep." : on a living room chair, covered by Charlie's pajama pants.
second entry: Dash; laundry basket.
Liam thought that I was going to help him set up a MySpace page to pick up eligible infants in the Seattle area, so he posed in front of the fire.
Still life with sleeping baby and brussel sprout hash. Not pictured: shrieking baby in other room
Liam, gloating because he has not only managed to pull out out his nose tube, he's also scored a spot on my lap
Yes yes, I know that life is full of firsts when you are only 2 weeks old. But they are so very exciting! October is going to be the month of eating. The boys have made it through three meals by mouth so far today. Dash was a bottle man, and Liam had a run directly to the source and ate about half of his lunch then finished it by bottle. Progress! It's a good thing they've been eating by mouth because both of them managed to pull out their tubes....again. Competition, competition. They just need to understand that the tubes only stay out if they continue to be awake enough to eat. My money is on them sleeping through their six o clock dinner, but you never know.
Dash, dealing with some particularly cute hiccups. Liam had some crazy ones earlier, but I had my hands full with him and a bottle and couldn't catch it on video.
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In non-baby news, I'm on egg watch at home. The teenager hens are moving into maturity and hopefully will start laying soon. Doubly hopefully they will start laying in the nest box and not in some crazy place in the woods because the older chickens won't let them in to the nestboxes. These days everyone seems to be getting along but you never know when someone is going to get bossy and crabby. Not only are they going to start laying eggs, I also have no idea what color the shells are going to be. The teenagers are Americaunas, so they should be a shade somewhere between aqua and khaki. My mature easter-egger lays beautiful pale blue jade eggs. I'm kind of hoping that every hen has a distinct color.
There are an awful lot of things growing around here.
Tomatoes: the romas I started a few months ago have graduated to larger pots and are almost ready to start hardening off. If only it would get a little warmer outside!
Basil: Charlie makes the best pesto in the universe. We eat a lot of basil. So much that we've never tried to grow it for fear we would have to seed an entire field. It also tends to grow a little pokey and slow with our cool weather. This year's experiment is to grow a bunch of pots indoors in the greenhouse permanently. These started as seeds and I just bumped them up to larger pots yesterday.
Vegetables in general: we signed up for a Full Circle CSA box and once a week we get a surprise on the front porch filled with tasty treats. It's like christmas, but with more strawberries!
Me: the wondertwins continue to squirm and grow in my belly, though I can't feel them yet. I seem to have left the hangover portion of this pregnancy and am now just dealing with the fact that I could easily sleep 14 hours in a day. It sure is nice to be able to eat again though!
Harry: well, he isn't exactly growing. In fact, he got shaved a few weeks ago and is at the lovely felt stage. But he sure does look big.
Chickens: the four babies are now officially teenagers, flapping around and looking mangy while their feathers come in. Grow faster, so you can move outside and stop making my kitchen smell like a barnyard!
Our original gravel driveway had one thing going for it: it doubled as a natural drainage field for all of the water coming down the hill onto our property. The newer paved driveway is lovely, and let me tell you it is way easier to rake all of the leaves and maple tree-whirlies off of it, but it sheets water like mad. About half of it goes off to one side of the house, but the rest of it pools along one curve and then flows directly under the house. This makes me a little nervous. I know that we live in a very wet place, and that our house isn't going to slide down the hill while I sleep, but all of that water can't be good.
So I decided to install a drainage pipe. Something that would take that pooled water and shunt it off to the other side of the house where it could blend back into the ground. One long pvc pipe, one curved joint, and two grate attachments later I let the chickens out and got the pickaxe out of the shed. After watching the chickens and realizing that they weren't going to dig the ditch all on their own I finished the job.
scruffy chicken looks for bugs to eat
The chickens are so amusing when I work in the yard. When they roam around, they are constantly scratching with their talons, bending over to see what they've unearthed, and picking something to eat. When they see me with a huge rake or any other gardening tool, scratching industriously at the soil they assume that I have found Incredible Treats and am ready to share with them. So after every pickaxe stroke, I look to see if there is a chicken diving into my upturned earth to check for worms. It is definitely easier to dig a ditch while you are laughing.
fashionable yardworking footwear, and mud covered legs: business as usual!
The chickens are also going through their annual molt, and are in the very unfortunate stage. They've lost most of their feathers, and if you look closely the blank spots are covered with one-inch long stiff new feather tubes. New feathers start out in a casing that looks almost exactly like a shoelace tip (if you've ever owned a parrot, you've probably watched them industriously try to help you by freeing the end of your shoelaces). These casings are jammed with new growing feathers that have blood circulating in them and they itch like crazy. This equals cranky chickens covered with prickles that want nothing more than to roll in the dirt. I've been letting them out more than usual just so that they can get some sort of relief.
--------------- Eggs laid in the coop lately: none! Molting chickens use every single mineral and vitamin that they eat to build new feathers. They don't care that I would like to make a coconut angelfood cake.
I went to get eggs this afternoon, and saw that the girl's yellow treat bucket was overturned. It was up against the side of the coop, covering an enormous hole. My guess? A bear. Something chewed through a one inch thick piece of wood and then peeled back the hardware cloth to get at the bucket. A cat or raccoon would have swarmed right through that hole and eaten all of the chickens. Luckily, when he pulled the squash and other bits out of the treat bin it was left covering the hole, or else the chickens could have just walked right through it. The picture doesn't show the scale very well, but that hole is the size of a basketball.
In honor of Charlie's, ah, fervent dislike of spiders: an enormous guest.
the only two pumpkins that grew in the garden...misshapen, but homegrown!
Today was day 1 of Brownian National Park Cleanup '09: The Driveway. The leaves haven't started to drop heavily yet, but they are so enormous and unwieldy that I decided to tidy up the front of the house so that I would have a clean slate to rake on. I pruned the ivy that had started to creep onto the driveway, neatened up some of my favorite ferns, moved windblown sticks and limbs, and pulled the last of the tenacious weeds. And then I met my fall friend the leaf blower. Five hours later, the front yard is looking relatively tidy. I'm kind of dreading the big push that will come next week or the one after. At first the dinner-plate sized broadleaf maple leaves seem like a great workout (and they are) but after days and days of raking and piling and dragging and throwing I am completely exhausted.
the chickens regard you from the coop
clean driveway, ready to be covered with leaves and cedar bits
While taking a break, I took the chickens some treats and checked the nestbox. Success! Two eggs laid today and both of them were sitting in the bottom tray waiting for me.
tasty x 2
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Eggs laid in the coop today: 2 Eggs laid this year: 725
Who thinks that my chickens eggs are delicious? I do! So when their egg production began to drop off precipitously a couple of months ago, I was confused. Because of the hot summer they had done a bit of an impromptu stress-molt, but that would only slow down production by a bit. I was only getting one egg a day at the most.
I became more diligent about checking for eggs several times a day, and noticed some sticky bits. Then some eggshells. You know who thinks that the eggs are delicious? The chickens do. Someone must have accidentally smushed one of their eggs after laying it and taken a nibble to see what it was like. And then they became unstoppable.
This happens with some regularity in chicken husbandry. Most of the time the solution is to have the offending egg-eater for dinner. Since I am not planning on eating these girls, I did some research and discovered the rollaway nestbox. The floor is on a bit of a slant, so when the chicken stands up after laying their egg, it rolls out of sight before they get to take a bite.
I cobbled mine together from the existing nestbox, some scrap lumber, and a bit of astroturf I had from some ancient project that I don't remember anymore. Now the next step is to get the girls to actually want to lay in the nest. Fingers crossed! I will celebrate with an angel food cake.
--------------- Pieces from Italy
I never got around to writing an epic tale of our travels, so I will go in snippets. When we were on the isle of Capri (pronounced "CAP-ree" as I learned), I noticed people drinking out of public fountains. Some were big ones in the middle of the square, but more often there would be an alley with a little urn or a fish or another figurine spouting water into a broad basin. After watching locals drink by leaning over and delicately sipping straight from the stream, never getting their hands wet, I followed suit.
It was a strange freedom, coming from a country where you daren't drink water unless you know exactly where it's come from. I've gone on backpacking trips armed with filters and pills and all sorts of purifiers and lived with a low-level grade of fear of the cooties. Cooties of the most gastrointestinally dreadful sort, if you know what I mean.
my new flag, bought at the Bellevue Arts Fair over the weekend
It's gloriously hot here, savanna hot, the plants trying to channel their veld cousins. The cats are lions in the shade napping the day away. I worked in the yard today and sweated out the last of the dreary winter and wet spring and drank liters of water to keep up with the transition.
harvesting columbine seeds to spread in the fall
blueberries just beginning to turn dusky
The hammock is hung and awaiting your pleasure
The chickens had a hot weather treat (they go bonkers for watermelon)
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My hot weather gardening secret: the Dear Liza bucket. Take a 5-gallon utility bucket and drill a very small hole in the bottom. Glue a little screen patch over the hole if you are feeling industrious, as this will keep the hole from getting blocked by bits of leaf. Place next to your favorite thirsty plant and fill. Over the next 30-45 minutes the bucket will decant slowly into the ground. Targeted watering at it's best!
a hydrangea, crumpling in the heat, is revived!
quince tree taking a drink
--------------- Eggs laid in the coop today: 5 Eggs laid this year: 539
My day started yesterday when the deer alarm (the driveway sensor) went off. I looked out the front windows to see a ginger dog loping down the driveway. Usually when I open the front door to investigate, roaming dogs take off into the woods never to be seen again. Not this girl. She ran up on the porch, wagging her whole body. I grabbed the dog collar I keep in the car and got her roped up to make sure she didn't run off. She tried to run off all right---- right up to Charlie where she pressed against his legs and whimpered with delight. Good dog, indeed!
It's almost too bad I found your home
I made a cup of coffee and took her out for a walk to see if I could find home. It turned out to be our neighbors whom I have never met but have heard their rooster crowing. The dog's name is Stella, and if I could clone a dog I would put her up as the primary choice. Such a sweet girl and so good with chickens.
Talking to the neighbor was fun and also helped me solve one of my chicken issues. Two of the girls have been dropping feathers around their necks and bottoms. It's not exactly the season to molt, and my neighbor is actually battling a bit of a mite problem on her chooks. After closer examination, my girls don't have any mites (they are really obvious if they are there) and just appear to be doing a stress molt brought on by the hot weather. I put some chicken gatorade in their water and brought the two mangiest girls in to have relaxing baths.
Eunice grooming
Penelope napping
I was laying right next to her on the floor for this picture and she didn't mind at all
Yes, relaxing baths. Eunice was a little cranky when I brought her inside, but once I got a girl into the warm soft water they really seemed to enjoy it. After a 10 minute soak they got dunked a few times to rinse and then towel dried. I had brought in the big cage thinking that I would have angry wet chickens but ended up taking the thing back outside. Penelope and Eunice hung out in the kitchen like southern ladies over for tea. They preened themselves and then each other, warbled some happy hen sounds. I gave them some lettuce. Penelope actually took a nap. The cats were more interested in why I was on the floor than they were in the girls. Overall, it was a spa day for chickens!
lady, I could use a spa day. Without water, please.
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Image from the weekend. Charlie went on one of his experimental cooking benders and concocted this lasagna. One layer is mornay (bechamel + parmesan), the next layer is a spicy fenneled lamb, and the green layer is a mix of green peas and mint. The sauce is a very simple tomato with a bit of butter and some rosemary. It sounds overwhelming and by all accounts it should have been. Instead it was incredibly complex and the pea mint layer brought out the summer in everyone. Delicious! (and I can at least say that I made the noodles)
and it was very pleasing to the eye as well
-------------- Eggs laid in the coop Monday: 3 Eggs laid in the coop this year: 492
Monday, June 29, 2009
I will fight you for this last piece of pie.
The cherry pie filling: success. Wild, unadulterated success. We were invited to dinner at a friend's house on sunday and in addition to 1. eating her fabulous meatloaf 2. holding her cute baby we also got to 3. eat cherry pie. It was the best. Yes, I wimped out and used a store-bought crust (sorry Elisa, I cannot seem to channel your crust-making mojo) but it was still without a doubt the Best Pie I Have Ever Made.
the garden today: enormous
There were rumblings during that dinner that some out of town visitors may be by this week to meet the chickens, and that was the catalyst for me removing The Lazy and doing a summer cleaning of the chicken coop today. The chickens don't get to free-range much (see: multitudinous predators and a zero rate of free-range chicken survival) but every once in a while I let them out to explore the great outdoors. So while I was cleaning out their palatial, enormous, entertaining, flight-sized (can you tell that I feel guilty that they are not free-range?) coop they got they run of the yard. And what did they do? They stayed around their flock leader to see what she was checking out.
She was scratching up bedding and scrubbing perches and sterilizing the waterer and the feeder. Yes, instead of exploring the great outdoors to their fullest, the chickens followed me around. I shooed them off regularly and they did have some fun dust bathing moments and ate a whole lot of greenery but they kept trying to see what fascinating things I was doing. I couldn't help but laugh. At the end of the day I shut them up in a lovely clean coop with fresh trimmings from the vegetable garden, and tucked them in for the night.
I will also fight you for this wine, which I tasted for the first time on Sunday and loved. AND Mark Ryan is giving me grapes in October to make jam, as long as I give him some of the final product. And he also gave me a scone from his favorite bakery. I am so awesome. Actually, I am shy but get really talkative when it's about jam, which served me well in this encounter.
--------------- Eggs laid in the coop today: 4 Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 4 Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 4 Eggs laid in the coop Friday: 3 Eggs laid in the coop Thursday: 4 Eggs laid this year: 448
Friday, February 20, 2009
In the interest of fairness, I must also point out that Henry is no slouch at sun-collecting.
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For Christmas the lovely Elisa gave me a wire chicken basket. Martha recommends storing potatoes or onions in it or using it as a centerpiece. I have a much more practical use for it: gathering eggs from the coop. Often on my way out there I am juggling a bin of treats for the girls (vegetable trimmings, leftover food, that sort of thing) and don't have hands free to carry multiple eggs. I know from experience that putting them in your pockets is not a wise choice. When kids visit they love gathering eggs and a toddler's enthusiastic grip is about as reliable as a pocket. Handles are much easier for everyone. I gussied the basket up with a little pad to keep the eggs from rolling around and it is just the thing.
--------------- Eggs laid in the coop today: 3 Eggs laid in the coop Thursday: 2 Eggs laid in the coop this year: 167
