Happy Harvest Blog
Two moms
We have our first Silkie chick. Cute little thing, brown spider markings, so it will turn out brown. The neat thing is that two hens are parenting it. I've never had this happen before. The hens sat on eggs next to each other in one of the apartments in the coop, always eager to swipe eggs from the other, but also always jammed in side by side.
Guess Whoooo
"I was startled heading out at night to close the chickens when something swooped out from the pig house past me and landed in the tree right next to the house. Like, these trees almost brush the house. This is a very bold owl, unconcerned about me, that's for sure. I was worried about the guineas, who had been out late, but they were all fine, perched up in the GH.
Nuthatchery
There's a nuthatch that seems interested in this birdhouse, that's right next to the house… I hope they stay and nest here…
The least eventful arrival of piglets event, ever.
It was kind of a long car ride, but they were almost worryingly quiet, and hardly stinky either. We’re home! Yeah, yeah. Not excited. I wheelbarrowed their kennel over to the new home, and they rode that journey like champs, sitting up, their sniffers working overtime. Just as fast as they could, smelling everything about the new environment. The wet, sprouting field, the damp forest. Me. SNIFFSNIFFSNIFFSNIFFSNIFF!
Ready for piglets
The piglet yard is all set up and ready to go. Right by the house, so I can keep an eye on them. This is from the porch. I’ve never put the pigs this close. They come tomorrow. I am overwhelmed with my own cleverness here, designing this for a water trough they can’t flip over. That means I’ll probably be lucky to get two weeks before they conquer it. It’s always unwise to think you’ve outsmarted a pig.
My scarcity mindset expresses itself in mulch
Last month when All This was bearing down on us, and seeing that isolation was coming – the thing that made me anxious? I don’t have enough mulch!! I went out of my way to panic-buy a load of hay, and obsessively made trips to the sawmill to bag wood shavings (the best free resource!), especially happy that I can get in and out with my little car stuffed with wood shavings without contacting anyone at all.
It's a sitting in a tree kind of day
The girls have been hanging out in the pine tree like they did when they were chicks. They remember.The weather is beautiful. Sunny, and it’s warming up – any day the bugs will come out of nowhere and the fun will be all over.
Another Only chick!
So glad. They have different mamas but will grow up together. This little chick got off to a tough start. I found her in the middle of the Silkie greenhouse after breakfast, peeping at the top of her lungs (which is quite loud). I popped open the coop and nudged all the sitting hens, to see who would accept this chick. Apples did, and the chick burrowed right in. Phew, crisis averted. Then I moved them out together to a box and chickery to start chickergarten together.
Greenhouse living and the drama of the popcorn string
This has been a good winter to be a chicken around here. The winter was mild, and I don't think there was ever a time that the birds were truly locked in for more than a week due to snow. Any time there was bare ground, they got released for at least some hours of foraging entertainment. And of course, they had their side yard always accessible, although all the birds tend to stay in when there's snow. So morale was good this winter, not much cabin fever.
An Only chick
Only one baby hatched:( I think it's just too early for chicks; too tough for them to survive and egg cooling happens too rapidly this early in the spring. I thought only chicks were super sad, growing up alone, but they do get intense one-on-one attention. Little Mama gave the other eggs a couple of days, then strutted out all Alright kiddo, time to learn to scratch! I moved her abandoned eggs down the line, to the six Silkies currently broody in the Silkie coop.
A chick!
The first chick of 2020 has hatched! These eggs had a rough go. I had a barred rock hen broody, which was exciting - those two are the sweetest birds. But she got off of them! She's done it before; it's like she's got a calendar in her head and when she's sat too long, it's over, instead of being connected to the life in the egg. So I put the abandoned eggs under this little lady, who I'm between calling Little Mama
The tulips are up!
So exciting to have tulips again! I haven’t had since I lived in B.C, and my mom sent me a big box of bulbs last fall. Yesterday they appeared and now they are poking their spear-like rolled leaves above the ground. Different tulips, different coloured leaves. I planted them by colour scheme, but I don”t remember which colours where, so it will be a surprise. I did wonder if the chickens would cause problems.
Well that's a vast improvement
What a relief for the eyes to have the beehives undressed for the year. This is the view out my front window. Such a visual improvement! The before picture. Good God, what a trash heap. Extraneous stuff wrapped around the bottom is to deter the chickens from pecking at the styrofoam. Nosey's a big styrofoam-eating culprit, and me running outside at her shouting does nothing. What? Crunchy! I like Nosey. I don't want her to die by extruded polystyrene
Sow it begins
This is the beginning of the growing year. Then there will be two trays, then five, and eight...Soon every windowsill is be filled, and the shelves will come out until all the available glass real estate in the house is occupied by trays in early April. I have calculated the current maximum seed tray load of the house is 14, unless I evict the aloes from the other picture window, and then I could bump it up again. I hope it doesn't come to that. I need some limits.
The bird breakfast buffet
It’s the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend, this weekend. Right now. You can watch the map pinging with bird checklists being submitted. I had something cool happen. I was using the eBird lists to see if I could identify this one bird that’s around almost every day, only ever one by itself, and I glanced out and it was here! I feel like it can only be a pine warbler, although he looks much more orangey than yellow. Not a pine grosbeak, though, bc he has the delicate beak.
Highest winds ever, worse than Dorian
Friday night we had a heck of a storm. It was strange that it was all over so fast, from onset to back to complete calm in 12 hours, with the storm blast lasting about four hours long. However, it was the highest winds we’ve ever experienced here, stronger gusts than Hurricane Dorian brought not too long ago. I know, because it blew over a beehive, and that’s never happened before.
Nosey wishes everyone a Merry Christmas today
And wonders if perhaps it would be cozier with a fire... Actually she sees her reflection. Nosey took to letting herself into the house this fall whenever the door was left open. She wouldn't stay very long, just do a lap, walking casually all around, checking for crumbs, and then pop back out the door and leave. I just had to know what was going on.
Autumn
A quick catch-up – the birds are all sleeping in the greenhouse now, so if I need to leave I can secure them in there and take off with my mind at ease. I’m drunk on the new freedom and am doing that quite a bit. When I’m home, they are released and I watch over them (there have been no losses since I went full sentinel), but they gravitate back into the warm greenhouse. They LOOOOVE the greenhouse for about two months, or half of winter. Then they start to get bored and demanding.
Chicken sitting, and an accidental week off.
I had no intention of taking a week off blogging, but I had a real week from hell. A book deadline, two books released, other time-sensitive obligations, and a side serving of serious stress which led to far too many nights working past midnight, so I'm just coming up for air now and seeing what else really needs to be done. The bees got reduced on time, they're happy. The chickens, though, are under siege.
Beehive reduction
It’s that time, time to reduce the size of the beehive stacks in preparation for winter, and steal their honey. I hate it. I don’t like taking their honey, and I don’t like the degree of disruption it causes, nor the death. In the process of taking the hives all apart, robber bees come from the other hives and there are disputes and battles to the death. Bees are very good at killing each other and the bee bodies pile up. I don’t know how to mitigate this yet.
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.
