Happy Harvest Blog
cheeks and the baked goods
All very peaceful, until a croissant comes out. First, it was pie crust, similarly discovered by accident – I was eating it within her reach, and she stabbed out her beak- I’ll have some of that! Multigrain croissant has proven to be such a huge and lasting hit, that I’m like Ok, eat some more of your grains, and then you can have croissant. She’s like I’ll wait. I can carry a box of them through the room, and her little head periscopes out of her banana box, following me.
ruffled feathers
I stopped this little Barred rock hen who's been wearing a denim jacket for a while, to see if she needed it still, or if her feathers had regrown underneath. Three of the other jacket hens are out of their coats now. This one happens to wear her coat like it grew on her, edges neatly tucked under her wings, and a perfect fit at her tail. I never see her jacket askew. But when I grabbed her to look under it, I messed everything up.
Lap chicken
It's nice to have a house chicken to hold. It's like a cat. I love cats and their hot water bottle properties, and I can't have one, but a chicken will have to do. You think they're all sharp beak and talons, but chickens are pretty nice to hold. They're soft, plush, and very warm. They burn hot, like a cat. Cheeks can sit on me for a solid hour, and she doesn't even peck my keyboard. She hasn't pooped on me either. Apples was not so polite.
Escapee
One of the guineas escaped from my carefully constructed bird shield. It flapped and scramble-ran up the plastic, therefore slipping under the edge of the mesh and out into the clear air.I actually saw it in progress, yet was unable to stop it from happening. It had just enough foot friction, I supposeI'm up here. Now what? Looked neat from inside. I left her up there to figure it out.Later... how's that guinea doing? Well, it's on the wrong side of the mesh, and now suspended, like it's in a mesh bag.
Sun day
The sun came out and dried up all the rain. Not all - there was a lot of rain. And more wind. This morning, the pig house was upside down. No pigs. That's never happened before (the pig house flipped, certainly not absent pigs). I can picture them bolting out of there as their house lifted off of them. Pigs are easygoing, pleasant, optimistic creatures though, so they had no worries about settling back in after breakfast. I had a good time in the greenhouse, cleaning up, untying strings.
You Tarzan, me chicken
Now I know why the other chickens weren't impressed by Nosey. This is what they do when I'm not looking. The white one was up there too, before I got the camera. Just walking around up there on the tomato vines. She's going to practice swinging in a controlled environment.
Rascally roosters
Oh, we could definitely make a mess here. This looks much too tidy. Lots of potential.Let me figure out our angle.And, ten seconds later... crash! BOBWAWCK, BOBWAAWCK!
Middle Chicks and greenhouse chicks
The four middle chicks are kinda loners. A little little chicken gang. On the left is a Silkie cross. She's experiencing the unfortunate phenomenon of her friends all growing up faster than she is. Her growth has stalled. Caped crusader on the right. The four of them are very attached to each other, and haven't become latched on to either flock of grown chickens. Their preference so far is to be in the greenhouse with all the babies, but I often put them outside, where they just pal around with each other.
Pas de roo
I was taking pictures of Chris and Cream Puff, the love chickens, hanging out together the way they do, but looking back at the pictures in series, it looks like they're dancing. He is SOOO much bigger than her! Oh, were you watching?
Guinea spa
I heard the musical little sounds of the guineas approaching the house (doesn't happen especially often), so I peeped out.They were going for the bath! There's a spot right by the trail where I was weeding out buckthorn, and the birds have decided that that's the optimum dust bathing locale. Now there's all divots and feathers. The guineas came in for the bath as purposefully as if they had little towels over their shoulders. It was their specific destination.
Porch sitters
I've got a bunch of porch sitters. Other than Perchick, these are all this years chicks, all grown up (almost). This crowd is always together. There's Inky and Velvet and Speckles (all lovely), and Pepper trying and failing to look distinguished. They're very relaxed. Head under the wing relaxed. Another one down. He's almost rolling over, he's so asleep. And three. Ok, everybody hide their heads!
Double trouble
Occupied. They were just hanging out, prepared to stay for the long haul. This is not a problem I was expecting to have: The squashes swarmed the fence, and the frost revealed the bounty. Stuck to the fence. The frost wiped out the morning glories, too, and the zinnias. Inky and Velvet are so beautiful (and so sweet). Inky still insists (very, very determined) on going to bed in the tree, but she might give a little chicken hug (neck snuggle) when you move her.
those feather askew blues
One of Foxy's (the oldest of the small chicks) chicks has a feather issue today. This sometimes happens, more often to the Silkies though. Can you spot it?What?It has little outrigger feathers growing sticking straight out from its shoulders. It's so funny. It's like only two feathers are committed to flying. They'll be gone in a couple days. Guineas doing their guinea thing. They're growing so fast. Galahad has a feather stuck on his face. A keet is about to notice and pluck it off for him. It's the most beautiful time of year.
dirt bath and other shenanigans
Chocolate's out of the chickery now too. This is great. All the small chicks with moms are at large, meaning I don't have to constantly monitor do they have shade, do they have water? Their moms take care of that now (lots of water options). Soon enough there will be another round of chicks hatching. She's diving right into the dirt bath. There's two popular spots at the moment, an old pig wallow, and this one under the corner of the hen rain tent, which is a bit of a sauna in the sunshine.
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.
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.
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,
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.
Full mudface
Finally some rain! The pigs, who are usually muddy to the eyes, are today muddy to the ears. They look funny, with their eyes cleanish in the full muddy cones of their faces. By afternoon they had gleefully mudded the whole rest of their bodies until they had single cleanish strips only along their spines. One of the pigs has a predilection for bringing one or more of their rubber bowls into their house. Sometimes all three are in there, sometimes stacked.
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
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