Happy Harvest Blog
Perfect Day
I forget how wonderful the first day of having the coops outside is. It’s a threshold day, the anchor of the seasons, when the chickens come out and the purpose of the greenhouse is transformed from winter housing (Poultry Palace) to growing food. The coop roofs, dusty and pooped on, will be washed in the next rain. It’s the real beginning of the growing season.
Coops Out!
So tired... but I had to bring the coops out of greenhouse in order to plant in there (only three weeks late). It has to be done.
The coops in and coops out days are benchmarks of the season. The beginning of summer, and the beginning of winter. Important, marker days. Like spring cleaning, the GH gets everything pulled out of it and then transformed, in purpose and appearance.
My chickens are scaring me today
It's hot, and there are chickens littered around, tipped over. They're faking me out, because they can look very dead, unless they hold their heads up. Gah! Oh, phew. She's politely retracted her leg from the path. You shall not...oh, yeah, you can pass. New dirt bath.
Poultry powder room
It was a warm and humid day. Almost the whole family was piled in the dirt bath by the house, making chicken angels. The family is growing. Except for Speckles, who's having a party of one in a private dust bowl out by the pigs. Yeah, and you're interrupting it right now. Got snacks?! Oops, I roused them. The pitter patter of chicken feet behind me on the path is quite a stampede these days. I didn't even have a bucket.
bird feeder sightings
Squirrels, rabbits, birds and voles - It's a regular multi-class buffet around the bird feeder these days.
First Silkie egg of the year
For perspective, this is a "new hen egg" (they're still working up to size, and an "old hen egg". They lay whoppers.
New hens- arrival
We collected our pre-ordered 18-week old layers from the co-op today. They're cute. Really not much more than teenagers. Very slim, with tiny pink combs.
A chicken worthy of a name?
We've got a true independent spirit emerging. Seven, as in, there's the chickens on the woodpile. Are they all there? 1,2,3,4...5...6, where's Seven?
Chick Days
Another chick! A little spotted one, with markings on its back like a spider! Yesterday’s chick is white, now that it’s dried out and fluffy. They are so, unbelievably cute, and tiny! One little chick is weightless in my hand.
The Days of Our Lives with The Combed and the Feathered
H.W. gets upset with “them all crowded around, staring at me”, and threatens to throw his hat at them. His hat-throwing has made such an impression that he no longer has to throw headgear, just give it a cowboy swoosh over his head, and instantly the chickens turn as one and flee. Not the hat!!! Hilarious, and effective.
Chickens Make Mulch
All I have to do is feed them twice in the same place, by scattering their breakfast grain in a grassy place. They are so vigorously committed to finding every last crumb that they tear up the grass, it dries, and I collect it with a rake. Clean, soft, dry garden-ready mulch.
Chickens running
Sometimes when I’m walking down the path, I hear a little whisk whisk behind me, and I look back to find two or three hens eagerly running along behind me. They stop immediately when I stop and mill around, at a loss. Uh, we were just, uhhhh, nothing.
First contact
I heard the Silkies burst out cry-screaming, and I ran out to see, just in time to see a red (full-size) hen sprinting towards me on the path from the coop, head up, eyes wide. Behind her Snowball the Silkie rooster was thundering along like a stormcloud, head down, wings out, and eyes narrowed. I didn’t have time to turn my camera on before it was over.
Week 2 with the laying hens - still a novelty!
They are endlessly entertaining, popping out of the grass, sneaking, running, exploring. They love it under our box truck and hang out under there every day, whether rainy or sunny. H.W. has a swarm of chickens near him most of the time when he’s working. Chainsaw, splitting firewood, dragging things around - they drift along behind him as he works.
Chickens, continued
I take off looking for the sunburned hen, and find her deep in the woods. She’s cunning and it’s a long, scratchy chase through the undergrowth with her little tail disappearing far ahead of me, to get her back up to our civilized area and back to the flock.An hour later, she’s gone again, and I can’t find her.
Happy shady chickens
They have nearly zero impact on their surroundings, being so small. They hardly eat any feed when they eat veg all day. Low cost. Very low maintenance. And low compensation. So they better be low cost, the little freeloaders.
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.
