View From My Kitchen

   A blog I read here (Gardens, Chickens, and Folk Music) tagged her readers to post a photo of the view from their kitchen. I have posted a photo of the window over my sink in a post last year. (My Kitchen window last year.) Not too much has changed in that view.

   But I can also look up and from the kitchen I can look out the windows at the top of the A frame end wall and usually I can enjoy blue sky and green trees, but this afternoon it is overcast and a bit dreary looking. When we first moved here I tried washing these windows, but after having to deal with all the dead birds that would crash into the glass I decided dirty windows were OK and aside from trying to get the cobwebs under control once in a while I let the windows take care of themselves. Clean windows around here are a wildlife hazard for birds. I don't want a deer to run into my slider either. 

   If I look across the kitchen and out the slider by the table there is a view across the driveway of trees and a row of bushes. These hens  planted themselves in a sunny protected spot under the bushes to catch the warmth of the sun. I took this photo when I was outside today, but if I had been in the kitchen I could have seen them through that slider.

Dark Brahma, Dark Brahma, Orpington, Buff Brahma, Wyandotte and there are chickens under the branches. I can see a chicken's head.

   There are actually two other windows and another slider I can see through from the kitchen. There is the slider next to the wood stove. the window over the window seat and the window by the front door. Oh... I just remembered that there is glass in the top of the door so I can see into the entry from the kitchen.  I can keep track of most everything from there. I can even see the gate from the kitchen window if I look along the side of the motor home and down the driveway.

   My brother and Sandy built this house and I remember my brother saying that since he was going to be living surrounded by trees he wanted to be able to see them when he was inside. So, this is pretty much a house of windows. But even so, the house is sited on the property in such a way that the sun mainly shines in the back windows. I only get very late afternoon sun through the kitchen window and never direct sun through the A windows. This all works out very, very well in the summer when we are getting temps in the hundreds, but I do miss the sunshine in the winter.

   I spent some time outside raking leaves and shoveling mud. It is amazing to me how the soggy leaves can dry out so fast with only a few days of not so warm sun.  Raking all the leaves is going to take some time especially since rain is due again tomorrow afternoon and Saturday.

   All the time I was outside raking leaves a woodpecker was up above me in that oak tree with the moss on it (I posted a photo yesterday) hammering away non stop. I wonder if he is making a hole in the tree for a nest. I think it is too late to store acorns? I couldn't get a look at the woodpecker to identify him. This is an informative site about acorn woodpeckers here.

   I walked around the property and picked up more downed pine branches and put them in the chicken pen. Smells nice.

PS: I found this site that explains a lot about why and when chickens do and don't lay eggs.
(A Pacific Northwest Extension Publication, Oregon State University, Washington State, University of Idaho)

Peek at the Past

(January 28, 2009)

This quilt business is sad.

It is all tucked away in a drawer.

[1 egg today]

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Smiles

Bad Girl

"Did anyone lock up the chickens?" I hear Kristine ask. Tom's watching tv. Kristine's watching a show on her computer. I'm posting photos to my blog. Soooo, into the silence I said, "I'll go lock them up." Tom says, "Check in the corner. A black hen has been sitting there most of the day." Ah! Photo OP. I grabbed my camera. It is 9:30pm and it is dark. Very dark. That light speck in the photo is the moon shining through the trees. I can't even see the trees. Well, I made it out to the coop with the help of a flashlight.

Surprise! There was a Dark Brahma roosting all by herself in the front open nest boxes.I went around to the roost side so I could get to the back wall corner and sure enough there is an Australorp hen in the corner. That is a Dark Brahma on the roost above her. You can get a glimpse of the other Dark Brahma on the front side.

Oh, and by the way, I'm doing all this in the dark. The flashlight doesn't add much light at all. The best light I get to see by is the flash from the camera. So, I manage to get myself scrunched up and bent over and grab the hen, pull her out and put her in the middle nest box with a Buff Brahma. She is not happy! Neither one of them are happy! And then I have to get my old bones to an upright position so I can climb back out. Phew!

Then I go back to look and see if there are any eggs. Oh, yes! There are four big beautiful eggs that I will have to get rid of. Phooey! Phooey! Phooey! She is a bad girl. But she didn't lay four eggs today, so there are some other hens on my list, but I don't know which ones. She wasn't there yesterday. I checked.

Since I was out there I counted the chickens. Yep! There are still eighteen chickens. So now what? The branches don't work to keep the hens away from this corner. I think the hen is broody and she just wants a quiet place to sit. I added the bottom nest box under the middle nest box because there were hens laying eggs in the dirt there. Maybe some hens just like dirt? I could add a nest box in the corner, but that area is under the roosts and that wouldn't work out very well. Oh, well, small problems. I'll see what I can come up with tomorrow.

I deleted the photos I had uploaded that I was going to post and then posted this little adventure. I suppose climbing around in the coop is good exercise for me and I should thank the girls for keeping me limber. Cluck, cluck girls!

[9 eggs today]

and 4 eggs in the dirt

Smiles

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