Chickens in the Spring

Our chickens have been loving the warm weather so I took the opportunity to take some nice pictures of them outside. If you remember from a previous post, we have some "top hat" chickens with feathers on top of their heads. They have grown into some of the funniest looking chickens ever...and oh SO friendly! They follow us around and ask to get pet. Granted if you're holding the chickens scrap bucket walking across the yard, it IS a bit disturbing to see 30 chickens following you. I mean, I KNOW they are harmless (well they are now that our attack rooster is no longer) but it's kinda creepy!

This is "Don King"

This is the sweetest and prettiest chicken I have EVER seen. I don't think I've ever seen her eyes. She has feathers on her feet too. If you hold her, she doesn't want you to put her down. Such a sweetie.

A Rhode Island Red. She actually looks silly to me without feathers on her head!

This picture is deceiving. This one is actually the smallest most petite chicken I've ever seen.

This one was actually really hard to get a picture of because she is SO friendly. I'd crouch down to take a picture and she would come right up in my face. I needed a macro lens for her, haha.

This is Manuka. She's our miracle chicken. We had 6 chicks we hatched last spring. They were actually way overdue (kind of like my kids, haha). They had gone past the 21 day incubation and we had no chicks. We had a big power outage part way through their incubation and we assumed they weren't going to hatch. at all. So at 5 days overdue we had to go out of town for two days. When we came back there were 2 chicks in the incubator! I freaked out and was running around screaming that we had to make a "home" for them and get them out. Over the next couple days we ended up with 6 total chicks. Over the summer they were let outside into a little fenced area. Our dog was completely obsessed with them. This is a dog who never cared about chickens before but something about these 6 made her crazy. They got a little bigger and were released into the coop. Not long later one disappeared. Then we found one half dead laying behind the coop with the dog over her licking her. We weren't sure if she had done it or found her and was licking her to nurse her. A couple days later as I'm finishing up the dinner dishes, my oldest boy comes running inside yelling that the dog bit the head off a chick. He had witnessed a headless chick fly out of the coop and the dog jump out behind it chasing it. Needless to say we weren't so happy about that. She was only allowed out supervised after that. But she did occasionally get let out by a kid or run up in the woods so we would lose track of her. With 4 kids the dog isn't always a priority. She ended up getting 2 more of the chicks. The one above was the last of that group of chicks. We protected her like crazy. I always called her Honey. She was so friendly. She had lost all her "friends" so we were her new friends. She followed us everywhere and would come running if she saw us come out of the house. Since she was our Miracle Chick, I changed her name to Manuka (manuka honey is a special kind of honey from New Zealand that has healing properties). She is still very friendly!

A gorgeous winter day and a walk in the woods

It has been a gorgeous winter! Well...according to me, some folks actually like piles of snow everywhere. We have had more 50 degree days over this winter than I have ever experienced in NY, keeping in mind I've only lived here for four winters. I'll take it! Today has been one of those days, almost 50 degrees, and you can see the gorgeous blue sky in the picture above.

Once we finished school and had lunch, of course we had to go outside and get some sunshine and fresh air. The boys have all been dragging and tired, too many late nights lately and not enough sunshine vitamin. We supplement with a good vitamin D, but there's nothing like the real stuff! Before I even had socks and shoes on, they had already dragged their 2 year old little sister up into the woods behind our house, along with both dogs. When I caught up with them they insisted the dogs made them do it. So we all went walking through the woods, the boys following the dogs, Abbie and I following the boys. Walking at the speed of a two year old, the boys and dogs were soon out of sight. What I am really enjoying about having such a nice winter is that we can hike through the woods without the danger of bees, wasps, snakes, or other scary, icky things. There aren't even any flies to annoy you.

The most annoying thing I've found is that the burdock is ruthless. I don't understand what that was every created for (Yes I know burdock has medicinal properties, but I'm talking about those stupid wiry balls that hang on the plant). I mean it has to have a purpose, but those sticky annoying balls drive me insane! They get stuck to everything. The dog comes in with them all over her and then embeds them in the carpet. Do you know how hard it is to get every little piece out of the carpet? Then there was the time that Abbie was cuddling with the dog, who had burdock all over, and it stuck in her own hair. She has the same color hair as the little burdock balls so I didn't notice it. But she kept coming up to me and telling me her neck hurt. I finally found the burdock all in her hair and it had made a huge rash all over her neck, shoulders, and upper back. That stuff is evil I tell ya. Today was no different, it got stuck everywhere. As I'm strolling through the woods thinking about burdock, I remember hubby saying a few weeks ago that he bets Velcro was inspired by burdock. So I looked it up, and it absolutely was! Wikpedia says: "The prickly heads of these plants (burrs) are noted for easily catching on to fur and clothing (being the inspiration for Velcro^[3]), thus providing an excellent mechanism for seed dispersal.^[2] Burrs cause local irritation and can possibly cause intestinal hairballs in pets. However, most animals avoid ingesting these plants." So isn't that interesting? And yes I caught the part about how the annoying little balls are an excellent mechanism for seed dispersal, bla bla bla, whatever...still seriously annoying.

Anyway, so back to our hike. Once we caught site of the boys again, I realized I was on a completely different path and had to find our way down a very steep hill (ok not THAT steep but covered in leaves and mud it's pretty slippery so it seemed really steep). As we get closer to them and I'm prying my shoes out of ankle deep mud, I wonder why in the world I would follow a group of boys following two crazy insane dogs. Abbie sees the boys doing this:

 Mountain climbing fallen tree roots. She squeals and runs toward them. You can see her head in the bottom of this pick. Then her feet sink deeply into the mud and she falls face first into the mud. Sorry there isn't a picture of that, for once I did the right thing and ran after her to help her up instead of laughing and taking a picture first =) Both of us covered in mud I decided it was time to head back. Of course the boys take a route back that you have to wade through a muddy stream. So I did the right thing this time and did NOT follow them. I took myself, Abbie, and the white puppy who I didn't want to have to bathe when we got back, up and around the creek.


We're almost back to the house and Lacey discovers this:

 Sorry about the blurriness on the left side of the pic. Abbie had my camera and I didn't notice the BIG fingerprint on the lens until a couple pictures later.

Then the cat did this:

Even from behind, doesn't it look like she's hissing?
Then Lacey says "oooh it's a game!" And does this...

 Took awhile to get her back in the house! She had too much fun chasing her. Better a cat than a chicken though!

I hope everyone is having as beautiful of a day as we are!

Meet our new white boxer puppy, Lacey!

 Meet our new white boxer puppy, Lacey! You know, I really thought with 4 kids that the sound level in our house was pretty high. Our kids are very well behaved but kids are kids and still have to let off steam and energy. I cherished nap time for the lack of noise and being able to hear my own thoughts. Well, take 4 kids and add an 8 week old insane puppy and the noise level is unbelievable!!! Then there's nap time, Lacey spends a good amount of time whining because she misses the kids! I think I need a good pair of ear plugs =) Then there's the fact that she likes to grab on to kids pants and get dragged around. Abbie, who is 2, is not a fan of that. So not only is the sound level increased, Abbie is whining and crying on top of it because the dog won't let go of her! Though she is a cuddly mound of cuteness and will only be a puppy for so long and we are enjoying every moment....just can't wait until she's housebroken =)

Bundle of cuteness

No pictures please!

Shhhh...I'm sleeping

Adventures with the Fuzzy Feather Heads-Part 1

This fall we ordered a new kind of chicken for our flock. We usually get Rhode Island Reds, Araucana's, Barred Rocks, Silver Laced Wyandottes, and Black Austrolorps. We've always wanted some of the chickens featured in the "Top Hat" Special. They are a mixture of different types of Polish chickens, and some others. All of them grow feathers straight out of the tops of their heads. Since it was so late in the season, we could not order just a few of one kind or another, we had to order 25 of the "Top Hat's" and get what we get. As soon as these little ones arrived at a day or so old, most already had a little cotton ball looking fuzz ball on top of their heads! They were so cute!

At 6 weeks old they are starting to get quite the personalities. Some are super friendly, some are extremely wild, all are still super cute, and rather funny looking. =)

This is my friend "Spits". She likes to come over to the waterer and spit water on us, every time we're in the coop!

 Stay tuned for more adventures with our Fuzzy Feather Heads!

Oh no!

I had a bunch of storage tubs that needed to be cleaned, so they were taken outside to hose down. I leaned them against some bushes so they would dry. Well after a week or so of wind and rain I realized they would probably do better in the garage because they just were never going to dry outside. Not to mention they were being knocked around by the heavy winds, and it just looked cruddy with storage tubs all over our yard. So one by one I took them into the garage. I went to pick up one that was upside down on the ground, the wind had knocked it off the bush I assumed....and when I lifted it up a chicken ran out of it!!!! I screamed! We had "lost" a chicken a week before but assumed, like all the others, it had been eaten by a fox. The poor thing had been trapped in this storage tub for a week! She laid one egg and then probably went on to conserve her energy. Luckily with the rain, there were puddles of water under there to drink, and bugs in the ground to eat. If it weren't for that I probably would have found a dead chicken when I lifted that tub!

Rocky the Rooster

I cannot believe I'm being bullied by a rooster. What does this have to do with organic and natural living...well they're organic free range chickens of course!
So we have this rooster, Rocky. He's beautiful. But in the last few weeks he's made me his prey. Why? I have no idea! I walk outside and he makes a bee-line for me. He'll get about 10 feet away and stop and pretend he's eating, pecking at the ground. Meanwhile I can see his beety little eye staring at me. He'll fluff up his neck feathers, come a little closer to me, stop and peck at the ground some more. This goes on and on until either I walk away (um, I mean run...yes I run from a chicken) or he gets close to enough to actually attack me. He throws himself at my leg and before he can do any damage I boot him and run.
Often I'll look up from what I'm doing and I'll see him standing outside the side door staring in at me. It's just seriously creepy!
Earlier today, the chickens were roaming around the yard and I went out to collect eggs from the coop. There were a couple dozen so it took me a few minutes. I step out of the coop and who is standing about 5 feet from the coop door? Rocky! Augh, seriously, how did he even know I was out there! He starts doing his "I'm about to attack you" dance (pecking, looking, fluffing feathers, getting closer, etc) So I head off into the woods. Then I realize I don't want to try to jump over a creek holding two dozen eggs. So I lure Rocky one way and then run around a tree and go the other way. As I'm heading over the bridge, I turn around, and he's actually RUNNING after me. Granted, I can run a heck of a lot faster than a rooster, but that really freaked me out! Yes I got safely back in the house without him actually attacking me, this time.
To quote Rachael Ray "If I had to actually go out and catch them and do you-know-what to them, I'd be a vegetarian" Totally my motto...but Rocky is very close to becoming dinner!

TP

We always buy "green" toilet paper. If you've ever used it, you know it's not the softest. One day we were at someone else's house and my 5 year old had to go. When I wiped his butt he said, loudly, "What is THAT and why is it so soft???" haha