Masterpieces

Masterpieces from our friend Jim Seymour. We all seem to have a little extra time on our hands right now, but Jim is spending his time better than most!

From top then clockwise: 

Fluffy - the half blind almost 8 year old rooster rooler of the front yard special needs chickens

Lucky - our incredibly spoiled, toe missing, first house chicken, addicted to cheese doodles and gin

Bunny - another front yard special needs chicken that is no longer special needs, the most indignant and entitled hen you could ever meet, one hell of a garden buddy with no tolerance for the dogs' shenanigans 

  

        and of course our magnificent goatie girl, Morgan Marie

A Flock Story

Hector, the Good Boy

Our chicker peckers free range on most nice days.  They're usually very good at staying close to home.  There is, however, a small inner-flock gang of delinquent hens that does like to wander down to the road.  The road has the allure of winter's snowplow debris build up that makes for a delightful dust bath.  Our road has been a little busier than usual with bored people out for a Sunday drive, of course on a Tuesday afternoon.  I get it, they want to get out of the house and ride around.  We do the same thing.  The difference is that we go slowly and are respectful.  Unfortunately, the fools tooling around on our our dead end road fly by kicking up the dirt and dust, and probably wouldn't have time to stop for lounging chickens.  So, because of this, I try my best to keep our girls out of the road.  When I notice them lollygagging around chitting about goodness only knows what, I let loose my signature call of 'snacker-doodle-do!'  They come running.  They usually come running.  Almost all of them usually come running.  But, one hen in particular has been deaf to my pleas this Spring, the allure of a good dust bath obviously more important than following the flock.  I call and the good girls come running followed by their dutiful roosters... except for Blondie Mama.  Blondie Mama, I could see, was busily preening all by herself in the road near the end of the driveway.  I called again, just for her.  Nothing.  I looked at our newest flock member, a beautiful large white yearling rooster, Hector, and asked him to go get her.  I'm thinking to myself, yup... I've lost it, asking my boy to go retrieve his girl.  What happened even surprised me!  Instead of coming to the porch stairs to have a snack with the rest of the fluff-butts, Hector makes his way to the end of the driveway and scoots the stubborn hen all the way back up!  "What a good boy, Hector!  I cannot believe you just did that!" I exclaim as I try to give a reward snack just to him.  He kept his distance, keeping a watchful eye on the girls as they scratched and pecked for the last of the seed treat I tossed for them.  What a good boy, Hector, you belong with this flock.

Mud.  That’s where we’re at - Mudville, NY.  Season - mud, mood - mud, dogs’ paws - mud!  The calendar says Spring, but really, it’s just mud!

Soon, though, my dear, sweet, super-zealous husband and I will be arguing about how, when, and where to plant our hundreds of dollars worth of seeds.  To make a point here, we do not yet have a greenhouse.  You better believe that’s on our short list of to-dos!  Our greenhouse will be a work of reclaimed, reused, and repurposed splendor!  But, because we do not have the splendorific greenhouse yet, our precious little seedlings, the ones that won’t be directly sown, will occupy all available, and some not yet available horizontal surfaces in our teeny tiny little cramped home.

    My aforementioned dear, sweet husband is an over-er.  He has a tendency to over-tighten, over-plan, over-anticipate, over-think, over-plant… and this season over-order.  Seeds are usually sold by weight, not by a set amount.  Because of that I could only guesstimate the actual number of seeds we have to contend with.  I’m not going to do that.  That would make my head hurt!

    We have always had a jam-packed beautiful garden, but I’m more than a little worried about where all these seeds of bounty will find a place to call home, to lay down their reaching little roots.  

    Some soon-to-be seed starts will certainly require more sun than others.  And, what about the climbers?  We don’t have enough trellising to accommodate all the climbers - but shall I say, yet.  Where will they all go?

    I draw the plots. I label the plots.  I agonize over what should go where and why.  My partner, my solid and strong (muscled and willed) gardening man has already made up his mind where everything will go - probably before the actual seed order has been placed. Nope, I have to have all the varieties laid out in front of me.  I have to know what I’m working with.  I have opinions on what should go where.  Sometimes, sometimes my garden-partner will listen to me.  We usually have great results when he does give in and do things my way… but then, of course, it was his idea all along!

Cheers and Happy Planting!

Go With the Flow

  Each of us would benefit from remembering to go with the flow.  All of it.  Even what we, at the time, may perceive as a nuisance. 

  For this instance the flow of which I speak is accepting and knowing life is not coming to an end because the goat ate our new nursery purchased basil plant. To be fair, the goat didn't completely eat the basil baby, just gave it a nibble and must have decided to move on to something else.  Regardless, it was enough of an herb-eating scene to draw the attention of darling husband. 
 
  Mister Mild Mannered is easily irritated by the goat.  Even though he does worry about her and she adores him, her very existence grates at this core. 

  Thinking that his heavy Mennonite made straw broom is the natural antagonist of chickens and goats alike, out he marched to save the seedling and banish the goat back to her pen.  I guess this would be a good time to mention that we allow Morgan, the goat, to free-range during the day when we're home.

  Funny how they, (you know, "they" I had drinks with "them" just last week) say "everything happens for a reason..."  It may be a hard sell to some, but I'm pretty much on board with it.
 
  Here's how we flow:  Because, if we hadn't gone on our seasonal trip to the nursery and bought more than we needed we wouldn't have left the flats of plants on the hood of our car...  If I hadn't let our goat-girl out to free-range she wouldn't have nibbled at the basil.  If she hadn't nibbled at the basil, darling husband wouldn't have rushed off the porch with his broom of banishment.  And if he hadn't rushed off the porch (and me following to help guide the un-banishable goat) we would not have heard the rustling in our otherwise babbling brook.

  If we had not been there, right there at that very moment, we would not have seen for the first time ever in our creek a sleek and stunning pair of beavers!

  We watched them effortlessly glide through the shallow water and around the rocks, under the road through the culvert and into the deeper water.  They circled around a couple of times, slapped their tails at us and continued to ease on down the creek.

  I don't know where they came from, or where they were headed.  But, I know that I am grateful they graced us a visit, however brief.  I had never seen beavers this close before - they were so elegant.  I could almost feel the love they had for each other.  This is a memory of gratitude and abundance that will stay with us for many years to come.

Thank You Meaties

Today, twenty-six large white beautiful birds will lose their lives for us.
 
We are so grateful to have them provide for our family.  They have been loved.  They have been well cared for.  And, they are appreciated. 

I don't even want to sully their existence or my reverence for today, but I don't want to forget either.  A part time neighbor, almost in the old-lady category stopped down, thankfully while I was gone.  Upon seeing our meaties, as we so lovingly call them, in our front yard, she commented to my much- more-tolerant-than-me husband that it was like a concentration camp for chickens.
 
That hurt.  Had I been there I would have had to walk away.  But, this is what I would like to have been able to tell her:  We have given these chickens the best life they could possibly have, given their breed and reason for being bred.  They have been pampered with green grass and yummy treats, plenty of water and ample space, shade from the sun, and a secure coop at night.  Every night when I put them to bed I would thank them and tell them they were loved.  It's true.  They were with us but a few weeks, but we loved them.  Loved watching them, loved caring for them.  We loved watching them grow.  These meaties were as happy as any bird could be I suspect. 
 
Our ten year old daughter understands why we raise our own birds.  She loves chicken.  And she loves chickens.  This little child understands where her food comes from.  I would hazard a guess that she's more in touch with where her food, and food in general, comes from than most adults out there.  Almost-old-lady-neighbor being no exception.
With that, I guess we can only feel badly for the majority of people that are out of touch with their food.  If this old lady thinks that our healthy happy chickens represents a concentration camp, can you imagine if she saw how supermarket and food industry chickens (and beef and pigs and and and) were raised?!
 
Our freezer is stocked for well into the Spring with big, plump, natural chicken.  There are no mystery substances pumped into them, no antibiotics lingering in the carcass, no broken bones because of inhumane or improper handling and slaughter.  Every single time we pull one of our own meaties from the freezer we send up a thank you.  Our lives and our hearts are filled with appreciation for these dear creatures. 
 
And, you know what - they actually taste like chicken!

Chicken Care and Essential Oils

A week ago I noticed one of our Littles, CJ, a summer 2013 hatchling, had a bad gash under her wing.  Of course it was from one of the stupid boys.  I brought her to the porch and gave her a nice treat while I rinsed out the wound with saline solution and then applied Vetericyn spray.  She seemed fine until today when I saw that the ouchie seemed deeper and as I poked around a little it started oozing.
 That was it - no oozing in the coop.  And, and I knew this couldn't be good - she was limping.  I brought that sweet baby immediately into the CCCU, (Chicken Critical Care Unit) - aka, our bathroom.  I have a fully stocked chicken first-aide kit that includes all the regular essentials and just this morning my new shipment of Young Living Essential Oils came in.  I knew it was time to break out my brand new bottle of oregano oil. 

Sweet little CJ was such a good patient!  She sat on a towel on our bathroom counter and let me dig and trim and clean.  There was quite a lot of ickyness that needed to be debrided.  She was calm and still the whole time - until I rinsed the gaping hole with sterile saline solution.  This wound was bloodier than any of the others I have dealt with.  Once I was able to see better I realized why my little hen was limping - her bone was exposed!  I don't know yet if the infection has progressed to the bone or if it is just really uncomfortable. 

 I mixed a butt-load of non-pain relief (that's VERY important!) triple antibiotic ointment with one drop of oregano oil.  I applied the TAO into the gaping hole.  With this much damage to the flesh I knew I wanted to cover it for a couple of days to help regain it's suppleness.  On a plain square piece of gauze I loaded coconut oil and one more drop of oregano oil and covered the wound.  Finally I wrapped sweet little CJ with an odd shade of pink vet wrap. 
She's now resting quietly in the shower on a nice fluffy towel.  She'll eat but isn't interested in drinking too much.  Even though she has trouble getting around, and being held seems uncomfortable - I think she's going to be just fine.  She's alert and bright.  Happy healing CJ!

Penelope... Where Are You?!


What a morning!

One of our favorite girls, Penelope, a Partridge Rock from our original flock, was not in the coop last night. We looked everywhere we could in the dark. It got dark and cold pretty quickly last night. What happened? We had not heard anything out of the ordinary. Though life with chickens is seldom ordinary, one does become accustomed to their day to day racket.
                      We do free-range our chickens. Our back yard has a massive amount of tall grasses and weeds. So much so that I guess we really can't call it a yard - truly more like the back forty. Ok, so the back six! Anything could come through the tall brush or along the creek, snatch a chicken and be gone. But, that just didn't seem likely. We have been lucky. Luckier than I would have thought. We haven't lost any flock members to predators since our first month of novice chicken-keeping last year. (knocking wood!)

I was in a fowl mood last night. I was mad and sad that one of our good girls was gone. As grumpy as I was I still had hope. I asked the chicken deities for mercy on my sweet girl. When I did sleep, my dreams were pretty wacky. I don't like loss. Not that anyone does actually like loss, but I take even the smallest loss sometimes too much to heart. Well, maybe except that time I sent a poor songbird to her death... of course I feel bad about it, but mostly I laugh about the incident. For now I'll just say that it involved my "saving" this poor little bird. And my cat. Yeah, the cat was there too.

Anyways, ever-hopeful, I checked each window at first light. I kept checking windows. While the coffee was brewing I decided to take a quick check outside. Still in my bathrobe, with no socks and leaky hiking shoes, I did a inner perimeter search. Nothing. I was chilled and shivering and cranky. I came back in and continued with my morning routine.. for about 12 minutes. I got dressed and took a last swig of coffee. Hubby could feel my urgency and followed suite. We got bundled up and fitted ourselves with our re-con gear. Me, a long stick. Him, his 410. We were ready for whatever we found. We searched and searched. We searched for well over an hour. So, after searching high and low, up and down the stream bed, in and out of the briars, under the cars and buildings, we decided to come back to home base.

We let the chickens out of the chicken coop. We were hoping against hope that somehow, maybe, we had missed her during head-count last night. No such luck.

We stayed out with our feather-babies for quite some time - admiring their antics and lamenting the loss of our beautiful hen, all the while planning our course for revenge. Yeah, yeah... critters gotta eat, too. But, we're not getting into that discussion now.
 
Soaked and chilled we decided to come back inside to finish our now cold coffee. Thankfully, before I had gotten too far into the warming up process I remembered that the chickens needed more water. So, I filled the gallon water jug and back out I went.
 
Like nothing had happened, like no sleep had been lost and like no hour long search had been mounted, like we hadn't been calling Penelope's name all morning long - there, happily scratching away in front of the porch steps, was Penelope. What the hell?!

I guess if a chicken doesn't want to be found, a chicken won't be found!