Happy Harvest Blog
buttonholes
Awesome! A buttonholer on a Singer treadle sewing machine, making perfect buttonholes. This is amazing technology IMO, from the 40's. On a treadle sewing machine the needle is fixed. It can't move side to side like modern electrics so it can't do a zigzag stitch. How to get around that? Let's grab the fabric and move it side to side while the needle goes up and down- voila, zigzags and buttonholes!
One Year
After blogging since the early oughts, 2018 was the first year I posted every single day. It wasn't always first thing in the morning, and sometimes a scheduled post failed to post on schedule, but I posted every day. After a while, it was too good a streak to break. What else did I do this year? Caught my first swarm, made a more effective strike against the invasive Glossy-leaf Buckthorn species we're plagued with than I have before, had a slightly better garden and a bigger one.
bees snugged II
The bees are all wrapped now, after getting their insulation. This time I tried to wrap the tar paper so that it was sealed and went up under the flange of the beehive lid, so in theory the water sheds over the tar paper wrap, but I can still get the lid off anytime. We’ll see. I put a piece of tape on the corner before doing the fold so the paper doesn’t tear- that worked well. Like gift wrapping. The paper is all folded down tight and taped to the eke.
Fat little woodshed squirrel
I don’t think it’s pregnancy. I think it’s sunflower seeds. This is the squirrel spot, where he/she tries to meet his hands together over her little squirrel buddha belly. Sometimes she sits on that corner of a pallet and nods off.
I can't enjoy my bath when you're standing over me like that
This guy’s really into standing on the edge of the bath. Now in a new location! Must inspect!
Boxed In day
You're doing it wrong. This little rooster is cerebrally challenged. In other words, he’s kinda dumb. The last surviving rooster of the refugees from the horrible, terrible chicken place (all the hens recovered and relearned how to chicken, although they are all super small), he gets to stay in with the hens because of his beautiful colouring and mild, meek attitude. His brains, on the other hand, leave something to be desired.
Happy holidays
Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas today, if that’s your culture, and maybe a delicious meal! No need to eat it with this intensity, though:) Happy Cheeksmas!
Ursa's chicks
Ursa and her four fluffballs are out in the world, bouncing around. Now she’s out of the bath and willing to be a tea cozy again. It seems like a moderate challenge to find their way under her.
We're goin' to China, kids
Ursa’s first day in the chickery: she celebrated her first day out of the broody box as the hens always do, with a vigorous dirt bath. I placed her in the former location of the peat bag (the overflow spot), for premium dirt bathing. The kids start to come around, Hey, I’m kinda cold, can I get under you? Stand back, kids, mama’s getting her bath on! She’s like a round fur tornado, spraying everything down with dirt. Evidently, it feels incredible.
Chickyback ride!
There are now an astonishing TEN unseasonal chicks. Ursa has four, and the other hen has six. Only the two of them stuck out broodiness to the end; all the others gave up (thankfully!) Ursa has graduated to spending days in a chickery, so the other mama is in the bigger corner coop suite, for a few days, as her chicks are more freshly hatched. A couple are brand new out of the egg. I think this is Chocolate, but I’ll have to check photos to be sure:)
the morning owl
This owl was in the walnut tree, lurking on the greenhouse. I need to get in there. I will learn how it opens. Then it flew to the nearby treeline to watch me, and the treetops above where it perched just filled with small birds of various kinds, including grosbeaks. I wonder what they were planning. Inside there’s a new pile of chips. It’s not a party in a bag, but they work away at a new pile of chips pretty steadily.
Cheeks the stork
Cheeks is doing much better than when this photo was taken a few days ago, and that aloe in the background is doing much worse. She’s done quite a bit of standing on both feet today, which is an improvement. She really likes to roost on the edge of the box when she’s done eating. She spends a lot of the day there, watching us come and go. She doesn’t miss anything, and I can tell when she wants to go in her banana box for a nap.
back to our regularly scheduled chicken programming
The chickens are having a ball with their dust baths. There’s quite a bit of spillover. First dirt spillover out of the bag or box. Then spillover of chickens bathing in the surrounding area. Cleopatra is hogging one of the bins, but there’s plenty of bathing outside of the bin. Cleopatra can spend all day in there. She regularly chooses to stay in come lunchtime, putting off eating. Eh, I can eat later.
not good very bad
My computer stopped working today in a way that seems forboding-ly final. It won't turn on and won't charge. No warning signs. The current suspicion is that some snow got into it. I'm already emotionally recovering. The blow is that my computer is my work, and there was quite a lot of data only on that computer. Now it is currently inaccessible in a deadline week, and I'm not exactly embracing having to re-record half of a book the week before Christmas!
I feel like some aloe today
Says Cheeks. She took a whole arm off of this plant (right), and a couple of beak shaped bites out of another arm. Then she took the tip off another plant. She really ate quite a lot of it, despite the bits she left behind. Apparently, today she just wanted some aloe. It’s good for her. No one else is eating it (I’ve tried, I find it bitter). This is the box she stands on, to eat, and just to hang out for a lot of the day.
chickens in a bag
Of soil. I bought peat moss, for the first time in years, because it’s a horrible unsustainable thing, since the potting soil I was buying is about 90% peat moss anyway, so it was still a fail. Much cheaper, and it doesn’t have the little white things that the birds pick at and sometimes eat. There are two halves, both being thoroughly enjoyed. The greenhouse and the baths are largely vacant, because it’s a thaw day, and everyone is outside. The netting was all down, but there was just enough overhead clearance for chickens.
unseasonal chicks
Who has chicks in winter? Ursa Minor does. Ursa’s got four little chicks (living). Two were already dead. The future is not bright for chicks hatched at the beginning of winter. But I’ll do my best to help her. One piece of cardboard and she’s got a student apartment now. That’ll be enough space for a few days, as they’ll spend most of their time under her. I moved her back from the kitchen so the chicks would tumble out so I could get some pictures.
Hangin' out
Afternoons are for perching. The Silkies have their dirt baths refilled, and they are all looking very fresh. Whiter than white. Sidewinder in her tattered coat, and Sidekick. Still a duo. Now way I’m going outside, but I will sample some snow.
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.
