Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
New baby chicks!
I was hoping this day was coming, but wasn't sure until I saw evidence that the eggs under my broody hen were going to hatch. Yesterday afternoon the eight eggs under black momma chicken started to peep and show signs of the little ones inside trying to make their way outside! Luckily, momma hen is letting me check and now I can tell you there are five fluffy white chicks hatched, two chicks (one black and one white) that went to chick heaven, and one egg yet with no signs of hatching so it might be a dud. The 5 little fluff balls are warm under momma, but I caught this little face peeking out:
The eggs were from another farm where they have a rooster who actually can fertilize the hens (unlike tiny little Colonel Sanders here!). On that farm they have white, red and black hens. They also have two white and one barred rock rooster, so any combination of parents is possible. It's funny that all the chicks are white, especially since all the other hens on our farm are colored. We'll always be able to tell which ones were new in 2009!
Keep your fingers crossed that we get at least two or three hens from this hatch, and that any roosters we get will be sweet enough to keep around, at least for a while. Of course I will post many more pictures as soon as momma gets them out and about, but I think that will still be a day or two as they are so tiny and there is that one egg left she's trying to hatch.
The eggs were from another farm where they have a rooster who actually can fertilize the hens (unlike tiny little Colonel Sanders here!). On that farm they have white, red and black hens. They also have two white and one barred rock rooster, so any combination of parents is possible. It's funny that all the chicks are white, especially since all the other hens on our farm are colored. We'll always be able to tell which ones were new in 2009!
Keep your fingers crossed that we get at least two or three hens from this hatch, and that any roosters we get will be sweet enough to keep around, at least for a while. Of course I will post many more pictures as soon as momma gets them out and about, but I think that will still be a day or two as they are so tiny and there is that one egg left she's trying to hatch.
Friday, July 3, 2009
It's not always fun on the farm...
When you have as many lives here on the farm, inevitably there is going to be some loss. When we got back from Oregon, we found that one of my favorite hens was dead in the coop. I picked her up and she was nice and heavy, not dehydrated, her comb was still bright red and she was not egg bound or had any evidence of parasites. In fact, other than the fact that she was dead, I couldn't find anything wrong with her. She looked like she was sitting down peacefully and had not been gone for long at all. Poor sweet girl. You would think with a dozen chickens, that losing one would hardly be noticed, but this hen was quiet and calm and a wonderful layer. I am definitely missing her.
She was always interested in what was going on around the farm, including what might be going on in the house as well! The australorp hens (and Sophie) are more assertive, but you would always find this one just behind them, waiting to see if anything good was coming.
Any time the minis were staked in the yard, this chicken was almost always by Yakki. Maybe she was waiting for him to scare up some bugs or worms. This hen was only a little over three years old, and while reaching the end of her steady egg production, she could still have given us a few eggs a week for a while yet.
I hope to have an announcement of some new additions on Monday or Tuesday, but I'm only about 50% confident of the outcome, so I'll keep it to myself for now. This picture above (off the internet) might give you an idea what we're watching and waiting for...oh, and it's not the puppy, although that would be fun too! So stay tuned!
Thursday, July 2, 2009
A trip to the beach
Most of you know, but in case you don't...Frank and I spent 12 years living at the Oregon coast prior to living in Arlington these past four years. There was a lot to love about living there and even a few things that were not that great (Oregon politics, the remoteness). My mom still lives there so we took a long weekend after school got out to go visit her and enjoy some time on the beach we so loved.
This is the approach to our favorite stretch of beach in Seal Rock, Oregon. We have spent many hours here gathering mussels, razor clamming and just plain soaking up the wonders of the ocean on long walks. There is also a good agate bed about 1/2 a mile down that I spent many hours looking for little treasures.
While these beaches have plenty of sand, there are also big rock formations just off shore. These rocks are so beautiful, especially when the big waves crash over them. Unfortunately, that is hard to catch with a digital camera, but even with this little bit of water flowing over, you can get an idea of how beautiful that is.
Vacationing children (young and old alike!) at the beach often build forts and other kinds of structures out of the log debris that has washed up past the high tide line. I thought this shelter was particularly well thought out with its thatched roof. Bon fires can also be seen in the evening scattered along the beach. What a good memory to have...sitting around the fire, listening to the crashing waves, the clear, starry sky, and good times with friends and family.
Here is another picture of the rocks just off shore. Vistas like this can be seen all up and down along the Oregon and northern California coast.
Here Frank and Sandy take one last walk on the beach the very morning we head back home to our little farm. Frank walked the dogs on the beach almost every day we lived here. I am sure that is mostly responsible for Sandy being a very healthy 13 and a half. Carly was not quite as athletic as Sandy, and, knowing where it was the right spot, sometimes she would plunk her chubby butt down and wait for Sandy and Frank to walk ahead for a while then turn back toward her. We're not sure when we're going to be back at the beach again, so we are glad we got this picture to remember all the good times on the beach they had together.
Now that we are back home, there are lots of things going on. Hay is IN for the winter, with 300 bales of good local hay jammed in every space possible. It is so good to have that taken care of and know that I have enough hay to keep them happy all winter regardless of how rough (and last winter was ROUGH) it is. I still need two tons of Teff hay for Maddie, as well as two tons of pelleted bedding. I'll have that delivered in late July, although I have no idea where I'm going to put it!
Frank and I went to a U-pick strawberry place yesterday and had a lot of fun, but of course forgot to bring the camera! We had such a good time finding those little red jewels hidden in the greenery. We kind of went nuts and picked more than we needed for fresh eating, so we've already given some away and will freeze what's not eaten in the next day or so.
We're off today to Vancouver, Brittish Columbia for a bike ride around Stanley Park, and to eat some sushi at a new place we discovered. We love being so close to this cosmopolitan city and visit it quite often. The camera is kind of big to bring on the ride, so no pictures today. Talk to you again soon!
This is the approach to our favorite stretch of beach in Seal Rock, Oregon. We have spent many hours here gathering mussels, razor clamming and just plain soaking up the wonders of the ocean on long walks. There is also a good agate bed about 1/2 a mile down that I spent many hours looking for little treasures.
While these beaches have plenty of sand, there are also big rock formations just off shore. These rocks are so beautiful, especially when the big waves crash over them. Unfortunately, that is hard to catch with a digital camera, but even with this little bit of water flowing over, you can get an idea of how beautiful that is.
Vacationing children (young and old alike!) at the beach often build forts and other kinds of structures out of the log debris that has washed up past the high tide line. I thought this shelter was particularly well thought out with its thatched roof. Bon fires can also be seen in the evening scattered along the beach. What a good memory to have...sitting around the fire, listening to the crashing waves, the clear, starry sky, and good times with friends and family.
Here is another picture of the rocks just off shore. Vistas like this can be seen all up and down along the Oregon and northern California coast.
Here Frank and Sandy take one last walk on the beach the very morning we head back home to our little farm. Frank walked the dogs on the beach almost every day we lived here. I am sure that is mostly responsible for Sandy being a very healthy 13 and a half. Carly was not quite as athletic as Sandy, and, knowing where it was the right spot, sometimes she would plunk her chubby butt down and wait for Sandy and Frank to walk ahead for a while then turn back toward her. We're not sure when we're going to be back at the beach again, so we are glad we got this picture to remember all the good times on the beach they had together.
Now that we are back home, there are lots of things going on. Hay is IN for the winter, with 300 bales of good local hay jammed in every space possible. It is so good to have that taken care of and know that I have enough hay to keep them happy all winter regardless of how rough (and last winter was ROUGH) it is. I still need two tons of Teff hay for Maddie, as well as two tons of pelleted bedding. I'll have that delivered in late July, although I have no idea where I'm going to put it!
Frank and I went to a U-pick strawberry place yesterday and had a lot of fun, but of course forgot to bring the camera! We had such a good time finding those little red jewels hidden in the greenery. We kind of went nuts and picked more than we needed for fresh eating, so we've already given some away and will freeze what's not eaten in the next day or so.
We're off today to Vancouver, Brittish Columbia for a bike ride around Stanley Park, and to eat some sushi at a new place we discovered. We love being so close to this cosmopolitan city and visit it quite often. The camera is kind of big to bring on the ride, so no pictures today. Talk to you again soon!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Just random stuff...
Frank and I are getting ready to head out for a long weekend at the coast, so we had a little list of things we wanted to accomplish before we left. One of those things was to weed the garden, as we didn't want it to get away from us while we were gone. Well, there are a number of volunteer potato plants around the edge of the garden that we have left alone, but we needed to weed around them, and that's when we dislodged the first potato of year. Cute huh? So Frank mounded up a bunch of new dirt around these plants and maybe when we get home we can have a meal of new potatoes and peas. Yum.
Seems like we put up a lot of pictures of everyone else on the farm, but poor Jake the hunter kitty gets left out. I spotted him out in the field that we are resting behind our house, so I snapped a picture of him. I called him to see if he would look at me for the picture, but he was focused on planning his assassinations for the day and ignored me.
I have mentioned a few times that I use the neighbor's pasture for the boys in the summer. One nice thing about this pasture is that he has a pasture shelter built on the side of his shop that they boys really like on sunny days. On overcast days, like today, they can be found napping just outside the shelter, always with one standing and the other laying, taking turns. These boys are best friends and are happy to be together and stand guard while the other naps more soundly.
The donkeys are currently in our upper pasture by the barn while the lower one rests. In this pasture is a huge cedar tree that is just perfect for napping under. Here is Daisy showing how it's done.
We are taking the camera to Oregon with us to capture some of the fun we'll be having there. Of course Frank and Sandy will be spending some serious time on the beach, and Mom and I will be visiting a friend's goat dairy to play with the baby goats and I wanted to get some clamming in at low tide. Who knows what other kinds of trouble we'll be getting into!? We wouldn't be able to do this without such a good housesitter taking care of things here at home. Thanks Leah!! Catch you guys later!
Seems like we put up a lot of pictures of everyone else on the farm, but poor Jake the hunter kitty gets left out. I spotted him out in the field that we are resting behind our house, so I snapped a picture of him. I called him to see if he would look at me for the picture, but he was focused on planning his assassinations for the day and ignored me.
I have mentioned a few times that I use the neighbor's pasture for the boys in the summer. One nice thing about this pasture is that he has a pasture shelter built on the side of his shop that they boys really like on sunny days. On overcast days, like today, they can be found napping just outside the shelter, always with one standing and the other laying, taking turns. These boys are best friends and are happy to be together and stand guard while the other naps more soundly.
The donkeys are currently in our upper pasture by the barn while the lower one rests. In this pasture is a huge cedar tree that is just perfect for napping under. Here is Daisy showing how it's done.
We are taking the camera to Oregon with us to capture some of the fun we'll be having there. Of course Frank and Sandy will be spending some serious time on the beach, and Mom and I will be visiting a friend's goat dairy to play with the baby goats and I wanted to get some clamming in at low tide. Who knows what other kinds of trouble we'll be getting into!? We wouldn't be able to do this without such a good housesitter taking care of things here at home. Thanks Leah!! Catch you guys later!
Friday, June 12, 2009
One year ago today...
It was one year ago today that the sweetest dog ever left this earth but not our hearts. Carly was truly a special dog that I still think of every day, and probably will the rest of my life. I wanted a way to memorialize her and after much though and running it by Frank, on this one year anniversary I had this done:
I got a little paw print on my foot because we always called her a "foot dog" as she was always either laying on our feet, or right by them with one of her front paws resting on one of our feet. So now her foot is on me forever.
Here is a close up. It's hard to tell scale, but it would totally be obscured if you put a dime over it, so it's tiny. I wanted you to be able to see the little heart, too. The tattooist did a very good job and had his own memorial tattoo of his dog, so he understood why I wanted to do this. The actually tattooing I wouldn't call painful, just irritating. It's so small it went quite quickly too. So that's my memorial to the best Wiggly Girl that there ever was...and now she'll be with me until I leave this earth too.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
A lettuce bouquet!
Yeah! I finally have a picture to show you of the first harvest out of our garden this year...LETTUCE! Actually, we've been eating it for over a week now, but I was reflecting on the beauty of all the different varieties and thought it would make a beautiful bouquet to show you! And this bouquet tastes even better than it looks! I asked Frank to take a picture of me in there too, just for posterity's sake, and to keep the mommas happy. So here you go!
You might look back just one blog and see the little potato plants just starting to greet the world after their long winter sleep. Well, I wanted to show you how much they've grown in just a couple of weeks. We planted another row a week later after not being able to find the Yukon Golds we wanted to try, so we went with the last of the seed potatoes of the proven winner from last year. This is double what we planted last year, so we will feel comfortable taking out some new potatoes without cutting into what we will keep for use throughout the year. Oh yeah, of course the boys had to get their mugs in the picture too.
I totally forgot to mention in any of my blogs that last year we planted a table grape plant last spring. It did OK last year, but this spring it is just going nuts! Frank built this lovely arbor/pergola for them to climb on and they'll be up there in no time. Our neighbor grows wine grapes and he's been a big help will all things grape. This variety is one that is a blush red, and is grown for just eating, so it should be nice and sweet. (I forgot the Christmas lights were still up there until I saw this picture! OOPS! Better get those off before the plant reaches that far and they're stuck there forever!)
Here is a bunch of little tiny baby grapes! They are so cute!! I would say I can find about 15 bunches of these on the vine so far. What a nice treat should they make it all the way to eating. At least the hens can't reach them!
I am a little late planting the annuals in the side garden (this is also where the grape plant is based) but at least I bought the flowers the other day and am ready to put them in. Really hot weather (for us at least) prevented me from putting them in the last few days, but it's cooled down nicely now and it will be a lovely thing to do this afternoon. The only bad part is that I have to put up some kind of barrier to keep the hens out, at least until the plants are well established. The little white fence we bought to try did NOT do the trick, so I might be back to dumb chicken wire and stakes for a while. Oh well, the chickens think everything is theirs unless I discourage them. Good thing they're so entertaining and lay us eggs all the time!
Lily and Daisy have been moved to the upper pasture that had been rested for about 6 weeks. They are happy to have access to their favorite cedar tree and be by the road so they can watch all the neighborhood happenings. The lower field is resting now and probably won't be used now until some time in July. It is nice to be able to let pastures rest, especially on such a small property. Having the neighbor's field and now another little pasture for the boys is allowing me to rotate everybody to some degree. I am very thankful.
Maddie was so peacefully eating some grass in the front yard in front of the blooming rhododendron bush that I got the camera and took a few pictures. She has been through a lot and it's nice to see her healthy and if anything, a little beefy for once. She is such a sweet little mare. I have told Frank that if I ever had an extended illness and was in the hospital, I expected him to sneak her in to see me!
So today is a lovely Sunday. Nice and cool again, like it should be!! We went to church last night, so today we're headed out for a bike ride and to visit the farmer's market in Everett, about 20 miles away. Most of today's chores are done, so all that's left is fun! Hope you have a wonderful week! Last full week of school for us...WHOOO HOO!
You might look back just one blog and see the little potato plants just starting to greet the world after their long winter sleep. Well, I wanted to show you how much they've grown in just a couple of weeks. We planted another row a week later after not being able to find the Yukon Golds we wanted to try, so we went with the last of the seed potatoes of the proven winner from last year. This is double what we planted last year, so we will feel comfortable taking out some new potatoes without cutting into what we will keep for use throughout the year. Oh yeah, of course the boys had to get their mugs in the picture too.
I totally forgot to mention in any of my blogs that last year we planted a table grape plant last spring. It did OK last year, but this spring it is just going nuts! Frank built this lovely arbor/pergola for them to climb on and they'll be up there in no time. Our neighbor grows wine grapes and he's been a big help will all things grape. This variety is one that is a blush red, and is grown for just eating, so it should be nice and sweet. (I forgot the Christmas lights were still up there until I saw this picture! OOPS! Better get those off before the plant reaches that far and they're stuck there forever!)
Here is a bunch of little tiny baby grapes! They are so cute!! I would say I can find about 15 bunches of these on the vine so far. What a nice treat should they make it all the way to eating. At least the hens can't reach them!
I am a little late planting the annuals in the side garden (this is also where the grape plant is based) but at least I bought the flowers the other day and am ready to put them in. Really hot weather (for us at least) prevented me from putting them in the last few days, but it's cooled down nicely now and it will be a lovely thing to do this afternoon. The only bad part is that I have to put up some kind of barrier to keep the hens out, at least until the plants are well established. The little white fence we bought to try did NOT do the trick, so I might be back to dumb chicken wire and stakes for a while. Oh well, the chickens think everything is theirs unless I discourage them. Good thing they're so entertaining and lay us eggs all the time!
Lily and Daisy have been moved to the upper pasture that had been rested for about 6 weeks. They are happy to have access to their favorite cedar tree and be by the road so they can watch all the neighborhood happenings. The lower field is resting now and probably won't be used now until some time in July. It is nice to be able to let pastures rest, especially on such a small property. Having the neighbor's field and now another little pasture for the boys is allowing me to rotate everybody to some degree. I am very thankful.
Maddie was so peacefully eating some grass in the front yard in front of the blooming rhododendron bush that I got the camera and took a few pictures. She has been through a lot and it's nice to see her healthy and if anything, a little beefy for once. She is such a sweet little mare. I have told Frank that if I ever had an extended illness and was in the hospital, I expected him to sneak her in to see me!
So today is a lovely Sunday. Nice and cool again, like it should be!! We went to church last night, so today we're headed out for a bike ride and to visit the farmer's market in Everett, about 20 miles away. Most of today's chores are done, so all that's left is fun! Hope you have a wonderful week! Last full week of school for us...WHOOO HOO!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)