Happy Harvest Blog
Galahad is step-fathering the new keets
The bee swarm denouement can wait - this is too cute. So, also yesterday, I picked up ten beautiful little guinea babies! Keets are crazy cute, with their orange puffin beaks and long necks. They were almost completely silent on the drive home. Birds seem to like car rides, if not the transitions and banging doors. I was looking forward to Galahad's reaction to them, but I got home at bedtime. G hopped right up to his perch, and I installed the keets in a vacant chickery,
MY FIRST SWARM!
It seemed to go pretty well. I was getting bees into the box. Only thing, they seemed to want to come out of the box. It was like a really slow boil over. I'd dump bees in, they'd flow back over the top of the box. I'd scoop them back in with my hands.
The look you get when you walk in on someone in the bathroom
I didn't know she was in the bath. I thought this pine tree was unoccupied and I walked right up to fill a water bowl. I was definitely interrupting. I think I got a bigger start. She had the pine tree spa all to herself and was enjoying her privacy with wild abandon. She got over it though. *Foxy has four! Her last egg hatched a couple of hours after I was taking pictures of the three new chicks,
Three new chicks
Foxy has managed to hatch 3 of 4 chicks. She somehow broke all her first eggs, and I gave her a second batch, so she has been setting longer than usual. She's used her confinement productively to start regrowing her moulted feathers. One. Two. Three! They're full-size eggs and chicks, looks like two Ameracauna crosses and a Chanticleer. Seems like the danger zone. Foxy is notably the least good-looking of all the Silkie hens, always grubby and making no effort at all. Just a slovenly chicken.
I forgot, harvest starts at the beginning of August
Had a very promising canteloupe, despite the vine leaves being all weird like they're blighted. But then I opened it, and it was green, green, green. Pretty, though. Pigs and hens enjoyed it. There are a couple of little watermelons coming. The tomatoes have hit stride, so there are 1-2 gallons ripening every day. I'm so not ready to start canning already. Too soon. I wondered if I'd get any of these. Exactly what the song sparrow couple in the next shrub was also thinking, watching me pick.
Baby beefin'
Staredown! The little roosters are beefin' again. Until one of their sisters runs up, then they're suddenly an unconvincingly casual. Pepper's found a new perch. She's not going to miss any water fountain gossip. Cream Puff jumped up in the walnut tree for some alone time. Way up in the tree. Fluffing herself up, walking back and forth on the branch. Higher than chickens normally go. Chris got nervous. She came down in her own time, just when he started to look like he'd go up after her.
Grub generator reboot
(mild gross factor warning for very sensitive - grubs) My "new and improved" grub generator wasn't working. The original buckets were better. YouTube instructionals notwithstanding, the grubs don't walk up the vacuum hose. They don't negotiate the ridges very well. What they do do, is crawl around that flat ridge near the top of the Rubbermaid, and they have no trouble crawling straight up the sides of the plastic. They really make time too, it's sort of amazing.
Itty bitty feather slippers
The little Silkie chicks are ridiculously cute. There's five of them; these two and Daisy has three, including the late silver arrival (who's doing very well). It's nice to have Silkie chicks under Silkie moms; I got used to seeing them with the fast-growing, out-sized "regular" babies. The moms are so doting, and fierce! The five are all still tiny fuzzballs, even ten days old, and you can see their feathered feet. I can already tell that this little brown one comes from the "extravagantly feathered feet" stock.
What the heck are these bees doing?
I took a look at the hive and got a bit of a fright that they were swarming (on foot?). That clump hanging off of the landing ledge...? But then I looked at the other hive: How similar is that!!? My theory is that it had something to do with the heat and the time of day. In another hour, they were all in the hive for dark. I was looking forward to going in the hives today, but then there was a sudden (glorious) thunderstorm!
Premature vocalization
THIS little guy was crowing today. It sounded like someone stepped on a squeaky toy. I think he was appropriately embarrassed and didn't do it again. Hope he puts that project on the back burner for a few months. I wouldn't have thought it possible if I weren't looking right at him.I'm like, You! You are barely 12 inches tall at your full stretch. You have nothing to crow about yet! The teens are so cute!! Bright yellow, big feet, that they have yet to grow into, like puppies.
So it's come to this
I knew it was a thing. I didn't know it was an industry. (Totally worth the click). I missed my calling as chicken seamstress. I have a couple of hens who would be really into that tutu (I'm thinking of you, Cheeks). I believe hens have enough self-awareness to have a sense of pride in appearance, and it would feel like an extra nice tail. I remember clothing changing the demeanor and status of Jean Jacket.
Bugs, good and evil
I think I have a squash bug problem: I dispersed them with soapy water, but they have the military might. There are honey and bumblebees rolling around together in the funnels of the squash blooms. It's true what they say about bees loving Echinacea (coneflower). I've found them NOT easy to grow, though, so I'm very pleased to have some mature, and even better, for them to be established in a perfect place in the garden
Snake eggs
I was doing laundry, and you know how weird stuff gets left behind in the washer? There was this odd, plasticky, flexible, inch-long "pod" left behind. I thought at first it was some kind of bean, or seed pod, and naturally, I tore it open, and it was actually something VERY FAR DOWN ON THE LIST OF THINGS I EXPECTED TO FIND when I opened it. In fact, I've never seen one before, and was excited with the discovery, but also sad, because it was dead from the laundering.It was a tiny snake!
A lot of pictures, for a day I didn't take any pictures
All the things I didn't take pictures of today: Moving the piggies into some lush new jungle land. I paid for it in bug bites, but they're piggy pleased. Chris and Cream Puff canoodling. They really are always together. Two new chicks, little Silkie chicks. Two new broodies, and wooo Nelly, one of them is vicious! This one was broody without eggs. I wasn't sure she was broody because she was sitting, but not on eggs, and she didn't know what to do with herself because she didn't have eggs,
Romeo's first day
Chris started his day with fights. The Silkie roosters took him on one at a time, from the top of the pecking order down. While he was distracted, another one chased Cream Puff and grabbed her by the tail. Hugely indignant, she escaped to the top of the coop, all ruffled up, to watch the fights. This was crazy! I was like, what are you thinking!!? This little rooster taking on the giant is like when your unsporty desk job friend has a few drinks and wants to fight the bouncer.
CHICKEN LOVE STORY
Cream Puff is back! To catch up, I sold some chicks, and thought it would be in everybody's best interest for Mom to go with the chicks. So Cream Puff (The Fierce) went along with all her chicks to a new home, and the plan was that once her chicks didn't need her anymore, she would come back to me. Updates filtered back: the same day her sister Perchick, still at home, turned up her beak at her chicks and went on an extended date with Philippe, Cream Puff dropped her chicks, and embarked on a romantic holiday with their rooster, Chris.
Cuteness is a full time job around here.
The rooster is making himself comfortable in the food tray. I’m just gonna lay down right here. The three pine trees I pruned up are seeing the use I imagined. Ursa and her chicks are under this one, and the teens have decamped from Pine Tree One (leaving that one to the grownups) to their own clubhouse tree, where they are cuddling (too much!). All the trees now have established dust baths, too. There’s a new addition! One teeny tiny little silver chick.
Galahad goes to bed
It's the last day of July, and I'm noticing the day drift already. Bedtime is slightly earlier at night. Before dark, I have to go out and open a door of the greenhouse to let Galahad the guinea in. The sweet spot is the time the chickens are still milling around but have lost their curiosity and have turned their chickpea sized brains toward their own going to bed, so that they don't also dart in (because they dream of it all day).
Ripening
The tomatoes are reddening up. The chickens have even already gotten to enjoy some overripe ones.If all these come red at the same time, I'm gonna have a real glut. Despite the load of tomatoes on these, I'm disappointed with this variety (Earlirouge). It's like they can't decide if they're determinate or not. And the peppers are coming. And the eggplants seem to be doing even better than usual.The first Silkie chicks are on their way. Two so far, both white, and she has three more eggs. There's one tiny beak poking out there from under Daisy. It's always a surprise how teeny tiny the Silkie chicks are compared to full sized chickens.
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.
