Noisy Hen/Roo And Noisy Me Clearing Stuff Out

 Hen/Roo has been very upset today for some chicken reason known only to herself and her coop sisters. Kristine caught her in a nest box yesterday sitting on an egg. So, did she lay the egg or appropriate it from one of the other hens? We wonder? But we know Hen/Roo is the noisiest hen... rooster... ?

Click here for an article about a rooster who became a hen. So, it works both ways. I wonder if Hen/Roo could change back. I suppose it depends on why she changed in the first place.

Today I made a video of her squawking, but it wouldn't load. (I'm using the new editor) I did take this photo of Hen/Roo and click here is an older video of Hen/Roo in a post about my teddy bear chair. Her squawking has gotten louder.

There was some very loud squawking from several hens going on earlier that had me and then Kristine running out of the house to see if there had been a fox attack.

But, no, we  counted the chickens and they were all there. Maybe they have figured out that I give them scratch (so I can count them) when they make a commotion.


We should have believed Morgan because she wasn't upset. She knows chicken language and knew there wasn't a predator after the hens.

Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don't do it. ~ Anonymous

I guess I am the only one who cares what it looks like under the kitchen sink. I'm glad I had already used some vinyl squares to cover the cupboard floor. That saved me some time because the vinyl makes it easy to wipe clean.

Well, as part of my cleaning/clearing out program I tackled the "stuff." I got rid of things (sorry no photo) I wasn't using, consolidated others (why did I have two boxes of Brillo,) and moved the salt and dog food to the new cupboard.

Earlier in the day I was noisy as I was dragging and moving "stuff" and clearing out a storage room and got it ready to paint tomorrow. But, first I will need to do some clearing away of monster spider webs. I can see me on the ladder tomorrow wielding the vacuum wand high over my head. Maybe I can get Kristine to steady the ladder for me. 

My next place to empty out is the closet next to the front door. I'm going to take everything out of the closet and only put back in things I'm using. The closet will no longer be a place to store "stuff."

There is some interesting stuff in that closet like my Dad's old fishing rod that is over 60 years old. I wonder what else I'll find? No spiders, please.

This corner cabinet on the end of the island used to be the upper kitchen cabinet over the counter. It is much more useful here. Sometimes I can't believe I tore all the cabinets off the wall and used them to build out the island. I tore down the laundry cabinets and put them up on the wall in the kitchen, took off the doors, painted and presto cheerful cabinets. And I don't have to keep fighting with cabinet doors. That's a plus.

P.S. Thank you to Marie Anne at In The Garden With Sow-n-Sow for the blog awards. She has a great blog about gardening and her chickens. And she writes! 

Peek at the Past
click here

(August 1, 2009)
I still use the pins.
I painted the table top.

[5 eggs today]


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Smiles

Henny Penny and Hen/Roo

Henny Penny and Hen/Roo scratching around today under the shade of some Madrone shoots off of an old Madrone trunk. I should cut them all off and I suppose I will someday when I get to clearing out this area. I remember that my brother raked this whole area clear. I have never been able to do that and have just managed to clear some paths from the chicken coop to the back fence and along the back fence. A mosquito tried to bite me as I was taking this video so I gave up and retreated to the house. I would love to have some wind to blow the mosquitos away, but then I would have to worry about forest fires. I'd rather have the mosquitos.

Things didn't go the way I thought they would today. Kristine got sick and had to go to her doctor. She is going to have to stay home for some extra days and get over the sore throat she has developed. She ended up spending time at the doctors and I ended up sleeping. I wish I could send her to Australia again for a vacation. She will have to pretend she is on vacation around here instead.

[9 eggs today]

Smiles

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June Lightning 6/3/09 - Placer County, California

Here is Hen/Roo staking claim to the top of the rock pile this afternoon and perhaps celebrating survival of all the lightning we had last night. We did get dumped on by the clouds (13 inches an hour) but they moved over us so fast that there are no puddles left. 

I gave the hens some corn to help with the celebration. They were happy to work over the corn to show their appreciation. I see that Wyandotte sitting over by the fence... I will have to check later to see if she left an egg in the pen. [no egg] And I have to remember to bring in any left over corn because more storm cells are supposed to show up tonight and tomorrow. [no corn left either] We do need the rain, but I could do without the lightning.

The lightning didn't seem to upset the hens

because they laid 10 eggs today!

They must feel safe in their coop.

Happy chickens!

After the lightning started we unplugged the computers and then turned off the lights so we could enjoy the light show. Wow! It probably wouldn't seem like much if we lived in the mid-west but we had over 1400 lightning strikes in an hour in one weather cell that moved over us. Constant booming and light flaring lighting up the trees.

If you can stand to sit through the commercial before the lightning video part starts this news video gives a good idea of the non-stop lightning. It was pretty amazing. But much louder where we are and more rain.

The lightning rattled the windows and shook the house. Lightning is not that unusual up here, but I never experienced so many lightning strikes in such a short time. Spectacular!

My video clip is only 6 seconds long because the lightning strike was so close that the bang came at the same time as everything lit up. I was so startled that I backed up into Kristine and she grabbed hold of me because she thought I was going to fall and I tensed up and my finger pushed the button and turned off the recording. Phooey!

There were lots of lightning flashes during the dark part of my video, but the camera could only get the very brightest flashes. I do have other videos but they are rather boring to watch since there is a lot of black screen in between the biggest flashes.

This was the brightest and loudest that I caught. My poor little camera did the best it could. Sorry the video is so short. Later if you want you can click on the video button and drag it slowly and you can see the big bolt of lightning.

I know it's black! Go ahead and click on it!

The noise you hear is the rain and then the thunder.

The Other Hen/Roo

This morning Kristine pointed out the other hen that is sex changing. It is the buff Orpington. I'm not sure if the black hen (Australorp) is the other Hen/Roo. I don't think so because the comb is not very big. You can see the Orpington has an enlarged comb and Kristine called my attention to the fact that she doesn't have a fluffy hen bum and she has gotten thiner. You can see she kind of has feathered pantaloons instead of the fluffy hen bum. I tried to get a photo of one but I found it very difficult because I got no cooperation from the girls. At all. I'll keep trying. I would like to get a photo of this one and another Orpington to compare their characteristics. 

This is the second photo of the hall tree I have posted. The reason it is here again is because I have been thinking about the things we do all the time that we never think about because they are so much a part of our life. I call them the invisible things because they don't get recorded because they are taken for granted. So, here goes with this answer to, "Gee, I wonder how they used to collect eggs?" question. Sounds dumb, but somewhere down the road someone may wonder? I wonder how my great grandparents did stuff. Well, this is what I do. I come out of the house, sit down, pull on my boots, get my coat and egg basket and head to the coop, put the eggs in the basket, come back here and do it all in reverse. Maybe this sounds dumb, but I'm going to try and record the invisible stuff when I can recognize it.

These two photos are of the top nest box (with me holding the door open) showing the opening for the hens to get inside (top) and the scrap boards (bottom) on the other end of the nest. When I say I closed in these boxes I don't mean that they are very dark. It is just that now they are closed in on three sides and little bit on the fourth. The hens seem to like them a lot.

Smiles

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[8 eggs today]