Scrappy and Bold

 This is Scrappy (named so because she is the smallest, yet most brazen of all our hens).  

 She is one our newest additions, just over 5 months old.  

Scrappy is half the size of our other hens that are the same age.  She is a tiny brown leghorn hen, light weight and quite flighty.  These physical characteristics, along with her boldness, allow her to escape the coop every morning.  She wanders freely around the yard while the other hens helplessly remain in their prison, waiting for us to let them out.

Scrappy waits for no-one.

 This week, Scrappy has decided she likes the view from the top of our wooden fence.  She mostly does this when we are outside, but not in the yard.  She has yet to actually fly over the fence to the outside, she just likes to perch on top and then fly back in to the yard when she is done surveying.

  Today, I was standing in the driveway talking to hubby.  A flutter and a chuckle and there was Scrappy, sitting on the fence eavesdropping on our conversation.  As scrappy as she is and seemingly wary of our presence (no hope of catching this girl!) she doesn't seem to want to miss out on any of the happenings around here.  

 

She is a sneaky little chick, always creeping up behind you when you least expect it...don't call me surprised when she starts perching on the window sill and peeking in the windows!  

Training tomatoes and teenagers

We are continuing to make great progress around here at the homestead and it feels great to get some major projects finished!  I am hoping to give an update soon on some of our progress.  For today...tomatoes and teenagers!

The garden is off to a great start this year.  Most years, after planting the garden, I forget about stuff for a few weeks while the seeds get started.  Then the weeds and the tomatoes get unruly!  So this year, I have convinced myself that I am going to be diligent about keeping the weeds under control.  I have also been working on training the tomatoes around stakes and in their cages.  Past crops have never been pruned or really managed, but we always got great yield, albeit unpredictable from year to year.  After some research, I have figured out how to prune both our indeterminate and determinate tomatoes to get the best yield and to keep the crazy plants out of control.  Training tomatoes...let's hope it works. 

Oh and we have teenagers...our chicks are not babies anymore!  They have been exploring the outdoor world in their run and it is quite amusing watching their curiosity bloom.  I still haven't given them all names yet, but we are getting there!  

 

 

I think I am going to call this one "Snoopy", she has her beak in everything!

 

 

This is "Scrappy" because from the get go she was the smallest, but the bravest!

Hubby made a seed growing frame for the chicken pen.  We have an Omega 3 greens seed blend and I planted it in the chick run.  Placing the frame over the seeds allows the seedlings to grow tall enough without allowing the chicks to mow it down!  It works great and the chicks love foraging on the top of the screen.  In a few days I will remove the frame and let them mow it down, then we will start over!  This gives the chicks some forage material while they continue to grow, until they are able to venture in to the yard!

Our other teenager, Gibson, is giving us quite the run around, keeping us busy and on our toes.  He is a joy to have around, but a lot of work.  Checking on the chickens is the favorite part of his day.  He does well with the adult chickens but is having a hard time adjusting to the chicks, they are so exciting!  He is learning to watch calmly and seems to understand the chicks are off limits but they are JUST SO FUN!

 

"Aw mom, can't I just play with one of them?"

 "oh, I am so bored with this...."

Next time: sheds, trees, jeeps and sandboxes!

Is it a sign?

I told ya'll 2014 was going to be the year of projects and I am happy to report we are off to a great start!  Is this a sign that we might get everything on our list accomplished?

First, we decided over the winter to expand the chicken pen and make it easier to raise chicks.  We have a brooder house, but we had no way to allow the little ones outside, protected, until they could join the rest of the flock.  Our pen also needed to be bigger.  The girls have to spend more time penned up these days.  This may or may not have to do with this guy....

Anyway, we decided since the garden was not being used this winter, and is conveniently fenced in, that it would make a good home for the girls while we changed their pen.  I say we, but really Hubby did all the work, I just did the supervisin'  

I am so happy with the final result.  So far it has worked beautifully and I think it will be so much easier to raise chicks this Spring!

 

Here is the entire pen, on the left the main pen and door, on the right the biddy pen and door.

The girls were actually out in the yard when I took this picture, but they always come to investigate...so they modeled the food/water/outdoor shelter station for me!

 This is the brooder house side.  At the moment it is totally closed off, but we are putting in a chicken door between the two runs, so after the biddies are integrated in to the flock, they will have the entire run!

Brooder house door and pen.

My favorite part!  I have been wanting to spruce up our yard and garden with non-vegetative things.  I thought the girls could use a little humor in their lives.   

I did paint this myself, but I did not come up with this saying, I saw it on Pinterest!

This chick says..."you better believe the sign lady!"

I am so excited to have the chicken coop completed.   Along with building the new space, we also lined the bottom of the pen with crushed granite we had leftover from another project.  This is so much easier to clean and the girls feet stay healthier.  We also have some suet feeders and ropes for hanging heads of cabbage (chicken tether ball anyone?) to keep the girls occupied when they have to be penned up.  I still want to work around the outside, doing some landscaping and making paths, but that will have to come a little later.  Oh, and I would show you the inside of the chicken house itself, we did a little rearranging, but the ladies were not prepared for company...so maybe next time!  

Because we have fancy chickens...

we get eggs that look like this....

with built in decorations and fancy swirls on the end....

Because our chickens don't just lay eggs...they lay fancy eggs.

You know what this means...it means our chickens just "one-upped" all of those other chickens out there that only lay "normal" eggs. 

...or it means there is something seriously wrong with this chicken...

D(ee)r Chickens,

To my dearest fluffy, squawking, spoiled feathered friends,

I was quite surprised at the sight to which I awoke this morning.  While rubbing my sleepy eyes and staring out the window, I was sure I was still sleeping.  A doe a deer a female deer....wait this is not a musical...a deer was standing outside your chicken coop watching you very closely.  You gals were having quite a staring contest with her, nose to beak with nothing but chicken wire in between.  Am I wrong?  Were my sleepy eyes deceiving me?  If only I had my camera handy.  I assume she must have come across your lair while she was grazing and was caught by quite a surprise to see all of you ladies, squawking away at this unknown intruder...a quiet and stealth beast...one you haven't seen up close before.  I can only imagine your surprise and fear and possibly hers, at that.  I watched as she investigated you closely and then moved on to something more interesting.

As I encouraged Waylon, our supposed guard pup, to chase the deer off, I was met by a blank stare and feeling that if he could roll his eyes, he would.  I have come to realize that Waylon is really good for no such things as being a watch dog or a normal dog at that.  I apologize dear chickens that his lack of prey drive has left you to your own devices when it comes to encounters of the animal kind.  But, fear not ladies, unless you are green and leafy, this deer wont bother you if she returns.  Of course, it worries your human momma, because she has a garden to tend.  But alas, this is no worry of yours.  You can go about your day scratching and pecking and being somewhat of a general nuisance.

In the meantime, you may find that the blueberry plants have been covered with bird netting.  Yes, I have seen seen you eying those ripening berries.  I know you think you are sneaky, but we did finally figure out that you gals were the ones eating the pole bean seedlings a few weeks ago and we solved that problem.  Don't blame me for the week of grounding to your pen.  Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice and I don't get fresh blueberries.  So now that the berries are turning full shades of luscious blue, I would like to keep them to myself  If you would like to keep your freedom, you will steer clear.

That is all my feathered friends, thank you for the delicious eggs and please refrain from pecking my newly painted toenails when I am in the yard. 

Sincerely,
Your human momma

Mass Emergence

Do you know what made these holes?  They are all over our yard...thousands of them!

Give up already?  It's these little buggers...

 

So what you may say....who hasn't seen a cicada stuck to a tree? 

Your question raises a valid point.  But have you ever seen this many?

or this many...

 

The pictures above are from one tree branch in our front yard.  There are hundreds of cicada exoskeletons, emerging cicadas, and recently emerged ones too.  

The kicker is this...every low tree branch, on every tree in our yard is covered like the one you see in the picture.  Not to mention our garage and garden fence, shrubs and the shed.  

To say we are overrun with cicadas is a vast understatement!  Apparently we are witnessing a 13 or 17 year mass emergence of these little critters.  

When you step out on our doorstep you can hear the cicadas.  It sounds like a broken fan belt in a car. 

Apparently adult cicadas do not eat, but the females can damage woody shrubs and trees when they are laying their eggs.  So we are picking them off our more valuable plants to prevent too much damage.  

But guess who really like the cicadas?  I'll give you a hint...no cicada is seen alive any where in the backyard, unless they are a good 5-6 feet from the ground and are smart enough not to land lower. 

Here is another hint...

Unlucky cicada gets plucked off a plant and carried to the back yard....

Said cicada gets spotted by ferocious golden feathered predator...

 

 The golden feathered predator goes in for the kill...

Unlucky Cicada becomes afternoon snack!

Silly dog wants in on the action.

Have you ever witnessed an mass emergence of cicadas? If this ever happens in your yard...I have one piece of advice.  Wear a hat...cicadas will give you the heebie jeebies when they get caught in your hair.

Garden Limbo

I've been a horrible blogger lately.  I know you have all been holding your breath in anticipation for my next post......right?.....

Alas, I have not fallen off the face of the planet...I've been a horrible blogger lately.  I know you have all been holding your breath in anticipation for my next post......right?.....I have just been a little bored and I wanted to spare you the pain of reading about my boring life at the moment.  We are in that downtime of late winter/early spring around here.  Late enough in winter to start thinking about the Spring but not warm enough to start really planting and preparing for the Spring growing season any more than we already have.  There is a little work to do (late winter garden, preparing the soil, etc) but not enough to keep me busy!  So I continue to float along in garden limbo for a few more weeks!

In other exciting news, I am working on my 3rd growth chart.  This is my first one for a little boy and I am so excited to get it completed.  I think it will be just darling and boyish all at the same time. 

This weekend hubby and I are getting into the bee hive and doing our Spring maintenance in preparation for the nectar flow.  I am hoping to get some pictures and video of the process . So keep your eyes peeled for that next week!  

In the meantime, here is a picture of one of my crazy chickens drinking out of the dog's water bucket and generally making themselves at home, anywhere they please! 

Can you lend me a...wing?

When Hubby said he needed help putting the siding on the shed, I am not sure this is what he had in mind...

Caught in the Act

You may remember when I posted this picture a while back...

 Look closely, that's the back end of our German Shepard Kyra, hunting for eggs in the main chicken house.  How she manages to get her old body in that little hole is beyond me.  She knows good and well she is not allowed in there, and she will only attempt this when she is very sure you are not looking.  (No kidding, I have actually watched her from the house and she looks both ways and up towards the house before sneaking into the chicken pen!)  

Since then, we have takin' to keeping the pen door closed with just enough space for the chickens, so Kyra is no longer able to get into the chicken house.

Well, this is what I caught with my camera yesterday...

This is our "chicken tractor", essentially our retirement home for our two older hens.  And yes, that is Kyra, inside the tractor.  Again I am amazed, she is a nimble old girl!

You can see Bandit out in front.  Our older hens don't really lay anymore, so I am sure there are very few times where there are eggs in that house, but Krya likes to check it out anyway.

And this is when she realized I was watching her (she can't hear worth a flip anymore, so she didn't hear me walk up).  

" What mom?  I was not in the chicken tractor, I swear!" 

When sharing a bath, expect no privacy!

For those of you who may not know, chickens love to take "dust baths".  It is an essential part of their well being, helping to keep their skin healthy and bug-free.  Not so good for your flower beds though!  

Our gals like to take their "baths" along the side of the garage in the blueberry bed.  That spot is warm year round since it gets lots of sun and the soil is nice and loose.  Today is a really nice winter day in our neck of the woods (about 50 degrees and sunny), so the gals are taking advantage of the nice day to take a little bath....

Chicken's have no modesty...those girls were taking a bath...right out in the open...for God and everyone to see!  And apparently the Americana gal is quite the "tub-hogger".  Sharing the space with her greedy friend seems to be getting this Buff gal in a huff!  

  

Not only that...now everyone else wants to see what going on in the bathroom.  The poor girls even get stepped on at one point by another Buff!  I tell you...lesson learned...if you are going to share a bath, expect no privacy!

Not to mention that moments later, this entire bath-time shin-dig was rudely interrupted by a curious and slightly jealous pup!

On another note, Hubby asked me yesterday what was tearing up all the grass in the yard....

I have no idea ;-)

Green beans, a broody hen and table of pears...

Now I know what you are thinking, based on the title of this posting, you think I am about to tell you a hilarious joke, you know the kind...a green bean and a broody hen walked into a bar....or a riddle...if you have green beans, a broody hen, and a table of pears how do you get them all across the river?  But alas, this title reflects my busy life the last few weeks.

I thought September-October would be when things would start to slow down, the winter garden is planted, the chickens are healthy and laying eggs, and the summer canning season is coming to an end.  But I was wrong....

Lately I have been up to my elbows in landscaping.  Here at our home and also at my folks house and a friend's new goat dairy.  I have been tutoring my nephew, I start a new part time job this coming Wed, and I have recently started babysitting for a set of 2 year old twins, one of which has Type I diabetes.  I am also in the beginning stages of starting a blog for a local school garden I volunteer with!  Whew and I thought I was busy with all of my normal chores....

Speaking of normal chores.  I thought I was done canning, at least until the apples were in full season.  But I was wrong, we are STILL getting green beans.  Yes folks, central NC, October, still getting basket fulls of pole beans.  We planted these pole bean plants in the early spring along with our bush beans.  All summer the plants grew up the fence and never once produced a flower.  Along comes late August and the plants decide they are finally ready to make some beans.  We have picked beans 2-3 times a week since and there are still blooms and tons of beans on the vines as we speak!  I have even had enough to can a few quarts at a time...speaking of...I have at least 2 quarts waiting to be canned in the fridge.

We also have a Buff Orpington that went broody a few weeks ago.  For those of you who are not familiar with this term, it basically means she is sitting on the eggs being a good mom waiting for them to hatch.  This would be great if the eggs were fertilized, but they are not.  So this poor little hen is mustering all of her strength to sit on eggs that wont hatch, sometimes she even sits on nothing.  Poor confused hen.

She wont come out of the nest box, she wont eat, and she wont drink.  This is not a good scenario for our little hen.  So the poor little girl is confined to a wire cage at the moment.  It sounds cruel but allowing her to stay broody and die of starvation is even worse.  The wire bottom in the cage allows air flow under her belly, which in a hen's little brain is not a good situation when you are trying to keep eggs warm.  Since she can't nest she should snap her out of the broody mind-set and go back to being a happy egg-layer.

We are seeing some progress with her.  She is eating and drinking regularly and she has stopped making the broody "cooing" and "clucking" noises and has progressed to squawking and "bock-bocking" (yes I just attempted to spell the sound a chicken makes!). We expect her to lay an egg soon and then she will be released from her brood-breaking prison.

Ah yes, the table of pears.  Our dining room table is covered completely in pears thanks to a dear friend.  So it looks like I will be doing some serious canning in the next week or so!

So I apologize for not being here to update you all on my craziness and sorry for the massively long post!  So for your enjoyment, here are some pictures of me and my nephews and our recent visit to a friend's goat dairy, Prodigal Farm

 This horse didn't want his picture taken!

This chicken loves the limelight!

Can you spoil a chicken?

As we wade through the stifling August heat, I have come to the realization that its almost time to start planting for the Fall garden.  But who can think of Fall when it is so hot outside.  Of course, this weekend has been pleasantly cool (in the 80's) so working in the garden and finishing projects in the yard were bearable and actually enjoyable!

Our garden is kinda split into two sections.  Now that the bush beans and cucumbers are done, that half of the garden can be tilled up and prepared for Fall planting, while the other half of the garden is still producing tomatoes, watermelon, peppers, etc.  So why bother tilling it and removing the plants and waste my precious energy when I have a whole flock of chickens who have been itching to get in the garden!  I fenced off half of the garden with some chicken wire and created what I like to call the "chicken playground".

As you may remember, we added 6 chicks to our flock in March.  But my little babies are not so little anymore.  Actually our new hens are bigger than our two older hens.  So two days ago we decided to "herd" (using this term loosely) the lil' ones to the chicken playground.  Boy were they excited to have access to the leftover plants and rogue vegetables to nibble on.  This plan seems to be working, as I have seen a marked decrease in plant matter and nice scratched up and "tilled" soil in just a few days.  And my little babies are happy!  (Kyra our shepard, as usual, is not so happy with any kind chicken relocation projects.  She spent the day guarding the garden gate...gotta make sure none of those chickens get out of line!)

Today I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and weed the other side of the garden.  As I was weeding I noticed a unusually large amount of clucking and cooing coming from the chicken playground.  I looked over to find my lil' ones lined up at the fence talking to me.  Their clucks and coos tugged at my heartstrings.  Those chickens love me with all their little chicken hearts (as much as a chicken can love, I suppose).  Hubby standing nearby could only shake his head and chuckle as I talked back to the chickens, petting them and feeding them blades of grass.  What can I say I love those little biddies, and I do believe I have spoiled them.  So yes, you can spoil a chicken!

Chicken Nesting Box Giveaway

Go to Life on a Southern Farm and check out their fun blog about living a southern farm.  They are doing a giveaway of their nifty chicken nesting boxes! 

HenPals 3 Hole Chicken Nesting Box Giveaway!

Check out this blog Life on a Southern Farm and enter to win a super cool hand-made, nesting box for your chickens!  Chickens need a dry secure place to lay their eggs and these nesting boxes are perfect!  Good luck!

Chicken Relocation

A few months ago we added some young chicks to our flock.  The new additions were to "replace" our three, two-year old layers.  We built the new addition to the chicken house to raise the lil' ones.  About the same time we started letting the big hens out in the yard.  As the little ones grew, we were faced with what to do with the three adult hens, keep them or find a new home. 

We knew we were not going to have enough space for 6 new chickens and the three older ones, so we decided the three older ones would have to go.  However, after a few weeks of watching the three older hens interact with the other "livestock" (i.e. Kyra and Waylon), we realized the chickens and the dogs have formed an interesting bond.  The three hens hang out with the dogs all day and Kyra seems to enjoy their company...go figure.  So we decided to keep the three adult chickens. 

Since they get along so well with the dogs, we have decided to make Bandit, Legs, and Rhodie free-range chickens.  So this lead us to our most recent project here at the homestead.  The six little chickens are being transitioned to the big house and have been given total range of the chicken pen.  Hubby and I built a chicken tractor and used one of our old dog houses to make comfy little chicken enclosure. 

The tractor is simply a way to keep the big chickens under wraps when we need them to be and to give them a safe place to go at night.  Otherwise, almost all of their time will be spent outside of their pen, with free-range of the entire yard.  We also designed the tractor so that it can be removed from the dog house and used as a stand alone chicken tractor for the six young girls when they are due for some "outside of the chicken pen" time!


Here are some pictures of the new chickens tractor.  We have locked the girls in it for a few days until they know this is their new home!

Ol' Girls checking out their new digs

The pen part is removable 

Kyra seems happy when the chickens are happy :-) 

Lil' Girls checking out their newly expanded roaming room (the green poles mark where their pen used to end!)

Seems like a lot of work just for a few chickens...but we love these girls, they have been good to us and they are still producing eggs on a regular basis.  Besides, who am I to take away Kyra's new friends?