Screamer (Light Brahma) and Morgan

Still sewing on the quilt back so here are some photos I took recently.

I really like the Light Brahmas. The two we have are big healthy hens and lay lovely brown eggs. That is Curly the Cochin standing to the rear of Screamer. I read that Brahmas were developed using Cochins and other breeds. They do look a bit similar as far as they are nice round hens.

Morgan is on the extra bed

that Kathleen used.

She doesn't usually get on the furniture

and she has three beds of her own,

but I guess the opportunity

was too good to pass up.

I snuck up on her with the camera.

She does look a little guilty.

Hugelkultur Underway

Yesterday I used stakes and marked out where I wanted the planter boxes. Today I marked the area with the shovel and cut out the bottom of a bed and piled the dirt to the side.


The dirt will go back on top when I get the other layers done.


I dug out the far end of the bed first and put down some old logs. Then I took a break. This is hard work!


The Wyandotte looks like she is asking me if I'm coming back to finish the job. Bossy hen!



I finally (after a few more breaks) got the rest of the bed dug out. Screamer is going to walk around on the logs while Morgan is doing her chicken watching routine.

I didn't have enough old wood at hand so I spent a lot of time walking the property picking up down wood and hauling it back to the bed.

 The first layer is done!

Tomorrow I'm going to clean out the chicken coop and put  layers of chicken stuff, leaves, and sticks. I'll sprinkle a bit of dirt in there too. I'll top the bed off with dirt and some of the leaf compost that has been cooking for many years.

The chickens are so funny. They wouldn't come in the garden area when I was working, but when I left to take a break or take photos some of them would zip in there and check the place out.

Sprout update: Argh! Nothing is happening. Tom got these lentils at the local  market and they are a store brand. Maybe these are old, old sad lentils and are not going to sprout. I'll wait a bit longer.

Peek at the Past

(March 18, 2009)

Jean's ankle is healed and she is home!

[5 eggs today]

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Smiles

Light Brahma With New Feathers

click on photo to enlarge

   I let Morgan and the chickens outside to run around after it stopped raining this afternoon. The sun even made a few brief appearances. The chickens were so happy to get out of the coop and scratch around in the wet leaves. I'm always hoping that they are finding good things to eat.

   I took a lot of photos of the chickens that didn't turn out, but I liked this photo of a Light Brahma that shows off her pretty new feathers after she had such an ugly time molting.

   Kristine and I watched the new Star Trek movie and I liked it! I didn't think I would care for it at all, but I really like the characters development and involvement with each other. The story wasn't much, but that was Ok with me. I don't like to watch a lot of fighting. There was some, but not too much. Well, come to think of it, there was a lot of fighting, but I managed to survive without putting my hands over my eyes.

   When I was a kid, I used to spend a lot of time in the movie theater hiding behind the seat in front of me when the action got too much for me to watch. Once in the 1940's when I was 6 or 7 I ran out of a theatre because I was frightened. I remember it was an Abbott and Costello movie and the gorilla scared me so bad I ran all the way home. Then when I got home I was afraid to go in the kitchen because there was a bunch of bananas on top of the refrigerator and I thought the gorilla might come after them. I used to hate the way poor Lou got slapped around by Abbott.

   I feel so bad for the people in Haiti who are suffering through the earthquake. We experienced a 7.1+ where we were located in the mountains, so I know what the shaking feels like and the devastation it can cause. If you shake a stick around, the top of the stick weaves around more than the bottom and something like that happened to the houses in the mountains. It took us 10 years to put our lives back together. I have no idea how that little country is going to cope.

   Aid to the people? We never saw the money that was donated. The help we received was from people we knew who gave us a place to stay until we could buy the motor home. We didn't have any money and we ended up with two mortgage payments when the one on the house was bad enough. Our mistake was in having earthquake insurance. No one would help us because we had earthquake insurance. The trouble was... the insurance company wouldn't help us either. We had to get a lawyer and go that route. The insurance inspector told us to pour cement in the crack in the foundation. Ha! They ended up paying out to get the foundation fixed, but first the lawyer stole the money. Like I said I could write a book. All the crooks in the world are going to show up in Haiti to take advantage and make money off the earthquake. Like I said. I feel very bad for the people. I'm going to have to make some posts about life in the motor home. I liked living in the motor home. What I hated was dealing with lawyers and the insurance company trying to get our house livable again.

   I love rainy days when I can go to bed early and read.

And that's what I'm going to do.

[0 eggs today]

3 eggs must have been too much for them yesterday

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Smiles

More Adventures With The New Blogger Editor

Click on the photos to see an enlarged view. 

Here is a photo of an Orpington hen settled down for the night. I disturbed her looking for eggs and with the flash. She is not happy. Her bunk partner got up and left before I could take the photo.

This post is also a test of how I can use Blogger's new editor to word wrap text around photos. Not quite sure how I managed this top photo, but it is working so far. I tried justifying this paragraph. I don't know if it is harder to read text justified or not. The text looks pretty on the page when it is justified.

When the 1st photo uploaded into the photo upload box, I double clicked on it and it showed up in the upper left hand corner of the editor. I didn't pay any attention to where my cursor was, so next photo I will put the cursor at the lower right and see if the photo zooms down there.

(edit: When I double clicked on the second photo it did show up under the top photo in the editor somewhat near the cursor, but it showed up centered. Evidently the default is for the photo to show up centered? I am finding that the photos show up in the editor centered and then I have the choice to choose a position for them or drag the photo where I want.

This Light Brahma is coming to me because she thinks I have some food treats for her and her buddies.

There seems to be a lot of space left under the bottom of the photos. I can't get text to move over and fill the space. Would be neat if Blogger plans to add a photo caption feature that would fit under the photo and left the space there on purpose. Maybe?

I don't like the fact that there is no spell checker in the new editor. I guess if I make lots of spelling mistakes I will have to go back to the old editor.

Should I keep the new editor? I tried it out last year and went back to the old editor. Using the old editor is much more comfortable, but this editor is kinda fun and I like learning new things. I wish blogger had more word publishing tools available for bloggers that would make blogging more fun. Next I would like to play around with a different page format. I'll have to go back and take a look at the options available. I know I don't want to get a page that has text read all across the screen. They are very hard to read and no fun.

I guess I will keep using this new editor for a while and see how we get along. Word wrapping and the larger editor window are a plus for me. Also being able to upload a lot of photos instead of only five at a time is a big plus. I used to work in publishing and having all that space around the photos used to bug me. But, now there is extra space under the photos. But not as bad as all the white space at the sides of the photos.

The third photo is of rosemary and sage plants that have gone wild in the abandoned green house garden. There is some myrtle growing in there, but besides these two herbs and the myrtle there are only lots of weeds and leaves. Oh, dear... I really do need to do something with the green house and garden area. They are on my list of stuff to do. First rake leaves then the green house. Or paint? Or?

(edit: I had to go back after I posted and choose the small size for the photos because they just didn't fit or look good with the wrapped text at a larger size.)

[1 egg today]

Thank you!

Smiles

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iPod

I wonder what they are saying? "Did you get an iPod for Christmas?" "I told you to stop following me!" "Do you know where the snow is?" "No!" "Go away!" "Wanna find some squirrels?" "No, I won't help you find a squirrel!" "I don't know what you're talking about?" "No, I don't know where everyone went yesterday." "I'm white and you're white; maybe we're related?" "No!"

I don't know, but I did get an iPod from Kristine and I have been having lots of fun listening to music, lectures and playing games. I have way too many Christmas photos and movies to sort through so I know which ones to keep, delete or email.

I forgot to ask if I could post Christmas photos, so there are no Christmas photos. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I really love seeing everyone, but I feel exhausted afterwards. Of course that could be from the hives. Kristine is battling off a sore throat. She has been exposed to the H1N1 flu at the library and at school. I really, really don't want her to catch it, especially since she won't go get the vaccine. She said the school nurse said she probably didn't need it. I worry because of her asthma.

I'm kind of loopy from taking Benadryl and sleeping all day. I tried to be careful and not eat strange stuff, but I got hives anyway. Phooey! But itching is better than a migraine any day.

[1 egg today]

A brown one from a Brahma.

Smiles

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Pay Attention

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you

to enter the house of his wisdom

but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

~ Kahil Gibran

I am grateful for all the wonderful teachers I have known.

Some have been friends, some were instructors,

but they have made a difference in my life.

I think of teachers as bringing light to clear away the darkness.

This afternoon I heard Morgan barking and yelled at her to "leave it!" I thought she was barking at squirrels. No! My neighbor called and said her daughter had seen a fox nab one of our white chickens and take off with it. Morgan must be so confused or just think I'm a big dummy. The new rule is that when Morgan barks I need to pay attention and go outside and find out what she is barking at.

Now we have two Light Brahmas left. The white chickens are easy to spot and we have now lost two of them to predators. The Wyandottes are the only breed we still have four of, so camouflage is definitely a good thing.

The hens are doing their pre-roosting before going in the coop for the night. I think they are a bit rattled after the fox attack. Tom said he saw them all come running out of the woods. Poor Morgan. She can't be everywhere and me telling her to be quiet didn't help.

If you want, click here to go to the page to vote for Suzanne, Chickens In The Road.

[One egg today]

Smiles

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Mending Fence

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us as we go.

~ Robert Frost - Mending Wall

I'm grateful for good neighbors.

Kristine let Morgan out this morning before she fed her and Morgan was gone. Kristine called her. I called her. No Morgan. Finally Kristine had to leave for work and I went out walking the fence line calling and looking for Morgan. I thought maybe a tree had fallen and knocked the fence down and Morgan had left for parts unknown. As I was walking and checking the fence I noticed several places where the barbed wire was loose or broken. Eventually, I found Morgan staring up at the tops of some trees. Entranced. Wonder what was up there? She doesn't miss breakfast for squirrels. And she was quiet. Not one bark.

Later I hauled some tools out to the fence to do some repair work and Kristine came by with the chicken killer. Lucky is Tom's dog. After the chicken incident, Lucky spends most of his time inside with Tom. We used to let him run around when the chickens were locked up, but he went over the fence one day and went after my neighbors goats. So that was the end of that. Inside! I would need an eight foot anchor fence to keep that dog on the property. As it says in the poem Mending Wall, "Good fences make good neighbours."

My brother built this fence and had to put extra supports in the area shown in the photo because at that time there were people around here who would drive their cars through peoples fences. The area around here is pretty much fenced now and there are even some paved roads, so there haven't been anymore cars smashing the fence down. Now I just have to worry about the trees falling on the fence. Well, there was the time a bunch of horses got loose in a storm and knocked the back fence down. You never know.

When I was a kid I lived in an area that had stone fences that had been built it was said by the Chinese. I don't know about that, but I loved the stone fences that ran over the rolling hills not following the new barbed wire fence lines. I always wondered about the early farmers and their adventures settling the countryside. Did they hire the Chinese or were the Chinese the settlers? Lots of gold mining in that area too with huge hills of dirt and rock all over the place from hydraulic mining. The poem above is about neighbors mending a stone fence. I always wanted to build a rock wall. Never had any rock. I guess those farmers plowed up lots of rocks. Why not make fences? I've got lots of leaves. I could make wreaths?

I had to take a photo of one of the Light Brahmas new pin feathers growing out on her neck. These Brahmas are hopefully going to have all new feathers in time for winter.

[3 eggs today]

Tom collected the eggs. Yea!

Smiles

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Molting Light Brahma

(Warning... there is a photo of a molting chicken below.

If you don't want to see a chicken

with missing feathers

stop reading now.)

Headless Chickens! Just Kidding... think we fooled her?

Curly the Cochin and a Golden Lace Wyandotte

Actually, the hens were busy grooming their feathers and they did look kinda strange without their heads showing. I finally whistled to get them to pop their heads up so I could get a photo.

molting Light Brahma

Since this blog is supposed to be a record of stuff that happens around here this year, I decided to go ahead and post the photo of the denuded molting Light Brahma.. The other two Light Brahmas we have look pretty good. I took all of these photos yesterday. Poor hen. Molting is a scary messy business.

Light Brahma

Just a few days ago she looked like this hen (her sister.) Now I expect this hen and the other one to start dropping feathers too. Maybe not. Chickens molt at different times. Here is a page that explains molting. I'm going to ask Kristine to help me check out the feathers and see if this hen is an early or late molter. Interesting stuff.

No painting today. Maybe tomorrow?

[4 eggs today]

Good thing I kept back a dozen eggs from the last delivery

because I needed them this morning.

I'm going to miss fresh eggs if the hens stop laying.

I really don't like store bought eggs.

Smiles

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Grandma Herding Chicken

I passed this table on the way to lock up the chickens and liked the look of the leaves that had appeared overnight. I could have picked up some prettier leaves and added them, but these are the ones that fell from the roof or blew up there. I like the table and the leaves add a nice touch. It feels and looks like Fall is really on its way. Kristine is even working on a cold. We usually get sick when the seasons change, especially in the Fall. She gets exposed to the public at the library and now at college. I hope her immune system stays strong and she kicks the cold this weekend. There were two Light Brahmas wandering

around outside the pen, so I resorted to

chicken herding. This is the second Brahma I "walked" to the pen. The first one was much louder and more vocal in letting me know I should go away and leave her along. And it took much longer to get her to the coop. This hen probably didn't want to be out by herself anyway, so moved along fairly quickly and didn't fuss too much. I should spend some time and train Morgan to do this.

[2 eggs today]

Smiles

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Happy Birthday, Kathleen!

Happy Birthday to Kathleen!!! Sorry, this greeting is one day late, but I did put up a birthday greeting on our Ning scrapbook site. You can see that we are enjoying your happy birthday cake! Hope you had cake and ice cream too and had a fun day. Miss you. Visit soon? Remember the German Chocolate cakes that your Grandma Dolores used to make. Wow, those were so good. Much better than these store bought, but needs must.

This is one of the Light Brahmas, maybe Pastey, who was giving me a bad time last night when I was looking around the coop and pen for eggs. She was the only one in the coop except for the broody nesters, and she was very vocal in her dislike of my presence. I think she sleeps on that slanty surface. She must have good balance and sharp nails. I always see her up there at night when I lock up the hens. She's a big girl and has staked a claim on the nest roof.

[6 eggs today]

Smiles

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What's in the Hole?

(We have lots of lightning so I am turning off my computer.)

I'm back. Wow! That was intense non stop lightning and we got dumped on with rain. But it was quick. Didn't take long at all for the weather cell to move off of us. But there is another cell moving up so I have to be quick and post in between the weather cells. I think I got some film of the lightning? I'll check and if there is anything on my camera that is any good I'll post it tomorrow. As soon as I get this posted I am going to unplug my computer.

Here is a curious Light Brahma.

Bet she wonders what the hole is all about.

Maybe something to eat?

Must be something good down there.

She is digging trying to get at something.

These potholes make it dangerous for me to walk in the pen.

Sorry dear, but I'm going to have to fill the hole up. 

Here is a Dark Brahma.

I think their color patterning is so pretty.

Sweet little chicken.

These two girls are very cozy! I think it is Curly the Cochin and a Light Brahma both determined to lay their egg in the same nest. [at second look I think it is an Orpington because of the dark feathers in the tail] I don't understand how chickens think. I would like to think they are pals and happy to be together. Cozy!

[10 eggs today]

Plus one dandy of a thunder storm!

Smiles

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Morgan Squirrel Herding

Some hens have close friends, other girls they like to hang out with while the rest of the bunch is in another part of the woods, these hens like the driveway? Beats me what they are finding to eat? Curly the Cochin and the two Buff Brahmas are tight. There is a Dark Brahma who follows them around, but stays about six feet away. Don't know if these hens are outcasts or an exclusive group? They are very close to the coop here. Maybe they are homebodies? 

Yea! Jean is home!

Sorry Jean! I was going to put your photo up first, but got it in backwards. You are first in my book! So glad that you are home! Hope you are enjoying yourself back in your own digs. Love you!

Smiles

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[10 eggs today]

There's squirrels up there! It is a bit of a wonder to me how Morgan can keep track of where the squirrels are in the trees. Maybe she is just faking me out sniffing their tracks making me think that she knows which tree they are in or traveling to or through. I mean, did the squirrel really run up the cut tree? Really! 

Leaves, Leaves, Leaves...

How about this! I actually got all the leaves raked away from the back of the house and even made a start on one of the paths. Since Danny showed me how to take movies on my camera I have been playing around with it and I managed to take the video below of one of our Light Brahma hens. She was making so much noise that I went to check out her problem (even Morgan showed up) and she just kept up her clucking. Don't know what she was going on about.

But now I know why I don't see very many videos on the blogs I read... they take a very, very, long time to upload. So, in the future I will make shorter videos. I am trying to video the Australorp we have that has convinced herself that she is a rooster. She makes the strangest crowing/clucking noise, and has even grown a larger red comb. I did catch her on video today but I can't upload it because the video was over 100MB. I'll try again.

This movie making is pretty fun stuff.

This chicken is for you, Sarah! She is clucking, "Hello, Sarah! Where is my corn! I want corn, my corn feeder is empty!" But, I'm not giving her anymore corn. They have lots of feed. Fat chickens. She is going to give up and go in the pen and get a drink. But she must have been calling her other Light Brahma sisters, 'cause they all are running around the pen to get to her. Who knows what she was clucking about?

[10 eggs today]

Smiles

Be Happy