Just Chickens

This photo of the spa house window is much better than the other one I posted a while back. Sandy designed and made this window and John built it into the wall. I look at this window and see a design for a quilt! I didn't sew today. Maybe tomorrow. Tom and Kristine saw the new Star Trek movie this afternoon and Kristine says she needs to see it again before she can figure out exactly how she feels about it. She likes the acting, the writing, the sets, but she said that the story or plot was a bit lacking. I think I will wait for the dvd to come out. 

So far it seems that the chickens have taken to the closed in nest boxes since today we collected 12 eggs and only two of them were laid in the open nest boxes.

The chickens were all excited about something again

so I had to come out and take a look see,

but I couldn't tell what the problems was.

Morgan was sniffing around

for something?

See that farm gate in the video? Well, when you open it, the gate swings into the pen and hits the other side, which makes cleaning out the pen difficult. I would like to take the gate off and reverse the hangers so it would swing out into the yard. Then I could get the wheelbarrow in there and load up the rakings easily. Or, maybe I should find another old door and build it into that area. That is a plan for the future. In the meantime I need to rake out the pen. I take it out in bucketfuls. It takes longer, but I will get it cleared out eventually. I only put the straw down in the pen because of the mud. It is much easier to keep the pen raked out and clean if it is just dirt. But chickens with muddy feet leave muddy eggs. Thus straw is called for.

Smiles

~:>

[12 eggs today!]

Teddy Bear Chair

This is now the teddy bear chair and I expect the teddy bears to behave and stay on their chair. I didn't like moving them off of the bed or off of the other chair every time I wanted to use them so now they have their own spot.  

The new arrival, Lavender Bear, was Donna's bear we gave her one Christmas. Now the bear is Kristine's keepsake bear to keep Donna's memory close. Lavender Bear will hang out with the rest of the bear gang until Kristine has a special place for her when we get her room finished.

Today I have actually been doing a little sewing

of scraps trying to come up with some blocks.

On the way to collect eggs this morning Hen/Roo was acting up and so garnered my attention and got her/himself another video spot. I really need to come up with a name for this chicken.

Have a good day!

Smiles

~:>  

Mother's Day Surprise!

Yesterday I found this card and box sitting on my sewing table.

Surprise!

I was delighted to find the hen salt and pepper shaker.

Pretty cute! Huh! You Bet!

This is right up my alley!

I washed it up and it is drying now.

This is going to be my everyday cooking with salt shaker

and will sit by the cook top

and make me happy every time I look at it!

And the card was really neat too.

Thank you, Kristine, dear daughter!

I love the little hen.

This morning I couldn't wait to check the new bottom nest box

and was happy to find 

this Orpington hen busy laying her egg.

Well, I think it is an Orpington...

It could be the Cochin, maybe? But it is hard to tell.

I collected 6 eggs early this morning

which is much more than usual.

I'm curious to find out if the number of eggs will increase.

[9 eggs today]

On the way back to the house I walked around the back

and saw a Light Brahma out at the fence.

She was busy scratching away all by herself,

but came hurrying toward the other hens

when she saw me.

Lovely day!

Smiles

~:>

Happy Mother's Day!

Hope you all have a lovely Sunday and a very happy Mother's Day!

Smiles

~:>

Progress!

You can see from the comparison of yesterdays's photos that I have made progress. At least I have kept working which is a good thing. First I gathered my tools then worked on the bottom

nest box and enclosed it on both ends and made a flippy door. I also cut thick boards and made a wooden floor for the bottom nest and filled it with straw. Then I put a piece of board over the broken plywood that the bear tore. Then I took the plastic cover off of the screen door to aid in ventilation.

Then I peeked in the middle nest box and found two hens!

So I guess they do like a quiet dark place to lay.

Hope they lay here instead of in the pen or in the woods.

This is a look at the inside of the coop

or the backside of the nest boxes

showing the boards I nailed up to partially enclose the area.

This may not be a beautiful coop

but it is cosy

and it's made out of scrap wood and stuff

Reuse is good.

I think it is amazing that some of the hens

came and laid eggs even though I was hammering

and sawing and making all kinds of noise.

Before I quit I filled the feeders

and checked the waterer to make sure it was clean.

I only got eight eggs today so I think

that some of the hens laid their eggs out in the woods.

I hope the girls like their new digs.

Got another egg!

[ 9 eggs today]

Smiles

~:>

Those are the keystrokes for a chicken.

Cute!

Here is a short video of the girls getting a lettuce treat!

They make a lot of noise pecking at the lettuce. It sounds like me hammering.

Chickens Want Privacy

Today I felt good enough to get outside and play around in the chicken coop. I wanted to enclose some of the nest boxes on three sides for the girls who like to be alone. So I thought I would give them a choice of open boxes or privacy.  There are a bunch of open next boxes out of sight to the left. The top photo shows the doors open.

I like the chicken wire door, but I think the hens will like the dark.

Well, it will be interesting to see where the most eggs are laid.

Here are the top two boxes with their wooden doors closed. Tomorrow I will first saw open and then enclose the bottom nest. I will cut away where the bear ripped the plywood and make a flippy door

I didn't have another metal latch, so I made a wooden turner thing.

I made two. Another one for the bottom nest door.

This is the inside of the nest boxes. I added the plastic box on the bottom 

because there were a few hens who were laying their eggs in the dirt. Goofy girls.

Instead of having to go through the pen and into the inside of the coop I would rather have a door on the other side like the other two. Much easier to collect the eggs. Tomorrow I will put some wood on each end and make a wooden floor for the box. 

Maybe I will add some wood on each side of the opening to make it a little cozier? I'll see how much wood I have left and how creative I feel.

See the pile of straw and dirt behind the little ladder? I shovel the stuff I rake up in the coop back there under the chicken's roosting area. It gets raked out turned over and shoveled back. It breaks down. I suppose it is a little composting area right where it does the most good. During the winter it is supposed to add some heat to the area. Sometime in the summer I do clear it all away, dump the stuff in my little garden and get this started up again for the winter.

[11 eggs today]

Smiles

Be Happy!

Cover Up!

A closet mirror was cracked when we moved to this house and although I did move the mirrors to another bedroom closet I did not replace the mirror. Instead I decided to have some fun with

some ivy leaf design sticky back wallpaper border that I had. 

I cut out lots and lots of the leaves and stuck them over the crack in the mirror so it looked a bit like ivy climbing up to the ceiling and then I put the border all around the top of the room. That didn't last too long before the sticky on the back of the wallpaper gave up and I had to take it all down. But the sticky on the mirror has lasted. So I still have my leafy mirror and I've grown to like it a lot and don't plan to change it anymore.

Over the years I have gotten used to making do with what I have and now I have come to appreciate the things I can put together more than some of the new stuff. 

I talked to Aunt Jean today and she is planning on spending Sunday at home. Hopefully she will be able to go home to stay soon. I know she is very happy about the day visit.

I forgot to put some space at the bottom of the edit page before I uploaded

the photo and I can't figure out how to get some space under there

and it won't let me type alongside on the left.

I've done it before, but not today...

Smiles ~ Have a wonderful day!

Poison Oak has Sprung

Spring must truly be here because on the walk to the gate yesterday I saw that beautiful green shiny poison oaks leaves were in evidence. The poison oak makes me think how great it would be to have some goats around the place to eat up the stuff. I wonder if the muscovy ducks would eat it? Probably not. Maybe next year after we enlarge the chicken coop. More fence? The poison oak is lovely, but I hate the rash I get from it. It is bad stuff.

As soon as it stops raining I will take the shovel and trek around

in the woods and dig and chop at the poison oak stems.

I don't expect to kill it, just slow it way down.

I think this oak tree might originally have been a bunch of little trees that grew together. These oaks look so nice with the moss on them, but when they grow like this they collect leaves in their middle and slowly rot and then part of them die and fall over.

Here you can see some of the leaves caught in the middle. I haul the leaves out, but water still collects in the winter and eventually harms the tree.

This tree has had several parts of it die and been cut away. 

The trunk where the bark has come off is pretty much dead and needs to be cut away before it falls on something . The tree that is laying on the ground shows how the oaks will just fall over. I have a neighbor who calls these oaks "weeds" and he removed most of them on his property. 

I would like to clear a lot of the oaks away from the house, but it is very expensive and they are way too tall for us to cut down ourselves. And having the oaks around the house in the summer makes the property soooo much cooler. And I do love how everything looks so green. But then there are the leaves to rake. I'll have to find out if oak leaves are bad for goats. We had a few oak trees when we had goats and when the goats could get a hold of some oak leaves they would gobble them up like potato chips. But they didn't get all that many or that often. 

[9 eggs today]

Smiles

:)

Standing and Sitting

Standing in the sun. These hens are trying to soak up some late rays. They have found a spot where the sun shines now and then as the clouds roll past. When the sun is covered they do not abandon their place, but do cackle and ruffle their feathers. Calling back the sun shine?

It was around 6pm when I went out to the coop to check on the chickens, took the photo above and then found this hen sitting in a nest. I do have some late layers and I thought I might find some eggs. This hen is noisy when it comes to giving up her egg. She doesn't peck at me, but one of the Wyandottes will take a stab at me now and then. This hen just protests a bit. I was moving my hand trying to get her to squawk again but she was all squawked out. By the time I got the camera set to record she had pretty much finished being upset. 

I'm going to go out to the coop tonight and count the chickens to make sure they are all still here because today when I called them for treats (twice) I only counted 13 hens. There are some chickens who like to go off by themselves, so I hope that accounts for the missing hens.

[10 eggs today]

I just counted and there are still 18 chickens!

We had 19 but awhile back something got the rooster.

Smiles

:)

Damp BBQ

Look what's happening in the chicken pen. Two of the hens decided to lay their eggs out in the wet straw. They were not locked up today. So, why? Don't know. Seems strange to me. 

Kristine and Tom took off for the movies to see Wolverine and I stayed home to watch the place and keep the fire going. All was quiet and not much happening around here except that I decided to barbecue chicken for dinner and then decided to add corn on the cob and asparagus to the list.

The house and deck are surrounded by trees which left me out in the rain, which is OK since it didn't really start raining until I was finished with the BBQ. (That is the point of the roof up there.) The honey and molasses I put in the BBQ sauce I made for the chicken blackened nicely. That was not my plan, but it tasted great. 

I took the husks off the corn, saved them, buttered and salted the corn, put the husks back around the corn, put them in foil, added some water, sealed them up and put them on the BBQ for about 15-20 minutes on the top rack on low.

Sorry if this post is a little off. I have another migraine. Yesterday too. Gee, and I thought they were going away. Hopefully, this will be a light one like yesterday. They really are getting lighter... not as bad as they were, so I do think they are going to stop. Now would be good.

Smiles

:)

Eggs in a Basket

Today I think I collected some of yesterdays eggs along with the eggs laid this morning. Makes a nice basket almost full. I like this little collapsable basket. I used to have a wire chicken basket that was cute to look at, but was awkward to use.  I'm looking forward to the day the white paint all falls off of this wood and I can stain the coop! The time is getting close where I can scrape off the paint that is left and get to the staining. I like the weathered look, but I think the wood will hold up better if I do the staining. The chickens were standing out in the pen in the rain looking sad and dejected. They could go inside the coop... silly chickens.

So, I went ahead and let them out to run around. They are probably better sheltered under the trees than out in their pen. There was only one hen in the coop and she was sitting on a nest. She was wet, so she must have just come in to lay her egg. A group of hens headed off to congregate in the driveway on the rocks. There they got busy preening and pecking their feathers. It must be warmer in the driveway area. Rocks retain some warmth?

The other chickens headed off into the woods in groups or they were

Lone Rangers like this Light Brahma.

She ran away from me as if she thought I wanted to put her back in the coop?

When I started this blog I said that it was also about my genealogy interests, but I haven't blogged about it much except to put a bit on the sidebar listing some links. Although I am interested in my family history I do not do genealogical research. The information in the book I have is all documented so that information is correct. The information I can find on the internet is interesting but I have no way of knowing if it is documented, and I am not doing my own research yet. Someday I hope to connect with some of my family and learn more about them.
 This book is called, Nathan and Sarah ~ All Our Children, and was compiled by Sallie Stewart Harrison and Ethel Stewart Cole, published by Bill Hanson Printing, Fort Worth, Texas. When this book was printed I was busy raising Kristine and Kathleen and building a house. I do wish I had contacted these ladies back in the 70's. This book starts with my 3 times great grandfather, Nathan Meeks, b. 1802, in South Carolina and his wife, Sarah C. Jones, b. 1801, Georgia. Nathan and Sarah died in Texas. As a child I lost touch with my father and mother's family and grew up without cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. Perhaps that is why I would like to find out about my family history. I don't even have a start on information about my fathers genealogy. I think that looking into all this history could become a full time occupation so I'm taking a cautious approach. 

Smiles

[a basket of eggs]

:)

Out of the Closet!

This morning one of the first blogs I looked at was

 Shorpy's photograph page.

And there looking back at me was an old photograph of men cutting out teddy bear skins. And what pops into my mind? Why, the image of my teddy bears hidden away at the top of my closet, that's what! So, I hauled that white bag down and pulled out my teddy bears. I bought these bears for my daughters in 1976 or there abouts. The grandpa bear was a bear we bought for Papa Henry one Christmas. Why was I keeping my bears in the closet? Don't know, don't remember. I guess it seemed a good idea at the time? Anyway, those bears are outa there!

These bears reminded me of an old song

and I went searching for it and found it on YouTube.

The Teddy Bear's Picnic by Ann Stevens.

I think this is from Britain in the 1950's.

[edit: I went searching and found this page on Amazon with the record for sale. I have searched for some information about Ann Stevens but can't find anything other than on Amazon.]

Teddy bears always make me feel happy. The girls and I used to use the bears to tell stories and the bears all had names. The big black bear was Mama Bear, then Honey bear [edit: Kathleen messaged to say that Honey was Honeysuckle! And Kristine agrees, so that's that. Thanks Kathleen,] Blackbeary, and Snowball? [edit: no, it was, Icicle, says, Kristine.] I'll have to ask Kathleen or Kristine what the names were. [Edit: Kathleen messaged that Honeysuckle was hers, Icicle was Kristine's and Blackbeary was my bear. Kristine says that we got Momma bear first.]

I do remember I made up a new 3 bears tale. Instead of a porridge story, in the summer I substituted watermelon and had the Mom and Dad bear take the watermelons to the river to have all the watermelon sit in the running water to get cold, and then instead of eating all the watermelon the little bear cut plugs in them until he found a good one and ate that one. I had those bears up to a lot of mischief and I had a lot of fun making up stories. Sometimes we would take turns telling stories.

That's our firewood under the plastic in a wheelbarrow.

That's about as close to the wood stove

as we can get the wood without bringing it inside.

And we don't want to do that and bring in the bugs.

Morgan would like to go outside and run around in the rain.

She kinda looks like a bear from this angle doesn't she?

Morgan the bear!

I'll be making another stew on the wood stove today.

This isn't a recipe blog but if you want

to see my wood stove stew

click here.

Those posts will show up below.

At least they did the last time I checked.

Well, anyway I am enjoying the fire in the wood stove!

Hope you are all well and warm and dry.

[5 eggs so far]

Smiles

It's Raining!

The rain makes the new green leaves even brighter and I am very happy to have more rain. It would be wonderful if we could catch up to our average rainfall. Last year at this date the cdec.gov says that the Northern Sierra was at 74% of average. As of 4/30/2009 we are at 89% of the precipitation index accumulation. We are better off than last year, but we need more rain!

Since it is cold and dreary, in an effort to cheer up this room

I decided to hang up a happy chicken sun catcher.

The chain was too short to allow it to hang down in the window

so I used an old necklace to add some length.

Now all I need is some sunshine.

Morgan was out with me when I checked on the chickens.

It is nice and warm in their little coop.

But she did get wet running around in the wet leaves.

This is Morgan's drying out spot.

She can keep an eye on things and it is nice and warm

up there on the stairs.

I think it is so neat how she drapes herself over the stairs.

I got some old dark beat up chairs quite awhile ago at a garage sale

and Kristine and Holly each painted one for me.

Holly finished her chair... see the little fish.

Kristine is painting a Captain America chair

but hasn't finished it yet.

This chair makes a nice addition to the sewing room

and it reminds me of Santa Cruz and the ocean.

I painted a little old chair too in bright colors

but it needs a seat and a bit of repair.

Something else for me to finish.

I guess this could be the room where the fun chairs hang out.

I like happy things around me.

[8 eggs so far]

Smiles

:)

Nanny Morgan

Cold day and I'm taking the day off! Well, at least the morning. I'll probably find something to do inside. Morgan marks the place where I left off raking. I need to continue all the way back to the trees by the fence line. Makes me tired looking at the photo.

I was experimenting with the photo layout and chose "none" and now I can't do anything with the photo and I have all these lines show up. Phooey!

I didn't use the return key and so no lines. It won't let me put text by the side of the photo. OK. Sooo, I'll go back to choosing photo placement.

Here is Morgan being a good Mom to the girls.

Or bossy?

I really can't tell, but I noticed that the Cochin was eating corn peacefully, when an Orpington comes up on her right and a Wyandotte comes up on her left.

The Wyandotte pushes the Cochin away, the Cochin all of a sudden develops an itch that needs pecking, and then Morgan steps in and noses the the Wyandotte away. The Cochin comes back to the feeder... and then things get too confusing for me to follow.

Chicken politics are complicated and with Morgan overseeing things I don't have much hope of understanding their pecking order. I'll just trust Morgan to keep things peaceful.

But I wonder if the Cochin is Morgan's little pet?

The cochin does end up by Morgan and back at the feeder

while all the commotion is going on there

at the end of this little episode.

[9 eggs today]

It is going to be rainy and cold for a few days

so I filled up a feeder with cord and one with grower.

It seems colder than when it snowed,

but that's just me.

Humidity?

Smiles