Another Tree Across the Road

Sunday, November 15, 2009

The other night I was driving home from work late at night.  It was dark, cold, and pouring rain.  It had been a long, hard day at work, and all I wanted to do was get to my peaceful, quiet home, eat a good dinner, and get some sleep before going off to work & starting again early the next day.  And then I saw it - the largest tree ever fell and was laying across our dirt road, blocking the only way home.  It was so discouraging to see that tree.  Why do trees only fall across roads at the worst possible time?  There was no way to drive around the massive tree.  It was a huge, old, dead tree.  The recent rain brought it down and made a muddy mess of the road around the fallen tree.

I couldn't get a picture of it as I didn't have my camera with me, and it was so dark and raining it would have been tough.  I called my husband, who luckily was home, and he drove out from home to "his side" of the tree and surveyed the situation from there.  It was no problem for him.  He climbed over the tree and brought me a change of clothes from home so I didn't destroy my work clothes, I changed in the car, then we both climbed back over the tree and he drove me the rest of the way home.  While I made dinner, he and the neighbor made short work of getting that monster tree out of the road.  They cut it up with chainsaws and pushed it out of the way with the tractor.  It was amazing how fast it was done.  What was I fretting about?  No problem for 2 men, a chainsaw and a tractor.

I took these pictures the next day when the rain finally let up.











  

The Road Less Traveled

Saturday, November 14, 2009

One of my favorite poems is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. I can't say these pictures are of a road not taken, because it's the only real road to our house, but it's a road less traveled than the paved streets.  And I love our place down the road less traveled.






With all the rain we've been getting here in Maryland, our road is muddy in places.



Field beside the road


 
There's always wood to be split.  This pile is from a past tree that fell across the road; we just haven't taken the time to split it & put it in the stacked wood area, so it sits beside the road for now.  The leaves are falling - Autumn is pretty in the woods.



Wild Mountain Holly beside our road.


Chick Update Day 20

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Autumn is here, we've been selling firewood.  Leaves are falling, deer are everywhere on our property.  And the chicks continue to take their fare share of our time every night.  It's been almost 3 weeks since we got the chicks.  We prepare treats (veggies like corn, broccoli, lima beans, squash, lettuce, raw spinach)  for them every night.  Sometimes we even found some earthworms for them - that always goes over very well!  It helps to make them tame when we spend time with them.  I've learned that they like the front of their necks & chests rubbed, now many of them line up to have their necks rubbed.  Even the wildest chicks (such as the little leghorn rooster-to-be) seem to calm down when I rub their necks.  Every now & then a pair of chicks ends up in the chick infirmary inside the house.  Just today 2 chicks were released back into the coop after spending a few days inside.  It seemed one of them was very weak, would barely stand up on her own.  She came into the infirmary & passed out on her side as soon as she & a friend were separated from the flock.  We learned chicks like to be with other chicks, so we try to bring 2 inside together.  The latest pair spent several days being monitored, were well fed and watered, and the one little girl got her energy back up & is spunky again.  I never thought raising chicks would be so complicated, but it's fun. 

              Here's Little Leghorn on Day 1                                             Leggy on Day 20


The flock


Chick Update Day 16

Friday, October 30, 2009



It's been a week since I posted about the chicks - they are growing up.  They are getting feathers, tails and combs.  They grow so fast. 

There have been some tragedies - we lost 1 chick and 1 guinea keet because of the momma hen.  The guinea flew over the mesh barrier that divides momma hen's side of the coop, despite the fact that the barrier is 6 feet tall.  Needless to say, momma hen doesn't like guineas.  That night everyone got their little wings trimmed.  Then another day momma hen crushed one of her own chicks by jumping on it by mistake.

We used to have 1 Araucana which seemed to have a twisted leg when he was real small.  Luckily that grew out & is all better now - she's running just fine.  One yellow Bantam chick had one tiny speck of black on a wing feather on each of her sides, and for some reason the others started pecking at the black dot on one of her wings.  Within just a couple hours she lost half her wing.

Injured chick eating broccoli



We immediately separated her from the other chicks, brought her inside & created a chick infirmary.  After giving her a bath we determined it was only her wing which was damaged, no injuries to her body.  She wasn't very happy about being separated from the clan, screamed constantly when we weren't holding her.  She would sing beautiful songs when we were with her - she sounded like a songbird.  The first day she wouldn't eat or drink, so we brought in another very calm, small chick from the coop during feeding times, and the friend encouraged her to eat & drink.  We had to be very careful the other chick didn't peck her, and the friend couldn't stay unsupervised in the infirmary with her.  Eventually her wing healed up, feathers grew back, and she looked almost normal again.  Because she still hated to be alone, we played XM radio for her, and eventually the other chick moved in with her full time until she was all healed.  She still had a black spot on the feathers on each of her wings - we carefully trimmed it out and then she went back in with the flock.  She's doing fine now; we're going to have to keep on eye out for her spots to make sure she doesn't get attacked again.

Momma hen with her chicks



The injured chick all better now



The guinea keets



My favorite little man, the leghorn, has a bigger comb than everyone else.



Some of the chicks love to sit on my arms - here I have 2 of them, and 3 others are waiting to jump up


Chick Update Day 9

Friday, October 23, 2009



The chicks have grown so much in the past week!  I consider the 18 chicks without a momma hen and the 5 guinea keets to be "my babies".  The hen is momma to her 8 chicks, which are maintained separate from my chicks.  My chicks are much friendlier than the others, they love to be held & fed.  They run to us when we enter the coop, and taste anything we feed them.  The other chicks with the hen are timid and eat only what momma hen approves.

The baby chicks love treats.  That's how we've taught them to come to us - we give them a treat at least once a day.  They love squash, broccoli, corn, lettuce, spinach, and especially earthworms.  We cut up the veggies into tiny pieces for them.  The earthworms are their all-time fav.  The chicks with their momma are not too sure about eating the veggies, but they also love earthworms.

The baby chicks are developing feathers on their tails & wings.  They have learned to roost somewhat, at least when they are awake.  One of the funniest things about the chicks without a momma is how they sleep - they lay down flat on the ground.  We thought it was because we started them in a glass aquarium which had a heating pad underneath.  They would fall sleep flat out on their sides or stomachs, with necks stretched out and heads laying on the ground off to the side or in front of them.  And they would all sleep on top of each other, in a big pile, chick heads & bodies everywhere.  But even after they've moved into the chicken coop, they still sleep like this.  If they fall asleep on the short chick-size roost in their chicken coop, their heads eventually fall to the ground when they pass out, causing them to fall off.  Our chicks & keets take sleeping serious, I guess.

The guinea keets get along fine with the chicks - we were wondering/hoping all would go well with them growing up together.  The keets are somewhat older/larger and are much more aggressive when it comes to eating treats.  We just have to make sure there's always enough treats to go around so no one gets left out.

This shot is kind of red because I took it under the red heat lamp in the chicken coop.



Chick sitting on my legs, others looking for treats from me



Momma hen and her babies on her back



The chicks love to warm themselves under the heatlamp with their wings spread out like this.



The guinea keets look like tiny vultures



The white leghorn chick is slightly larger and older than the others.  His comb is more developed, maybe because he's older.  He's also faster, more alert, always involved in everything.  I don't know if the differences with him are because he's a different type of chick, or because he's older, or maybe because he's a male.  Guess we'll find out. 



This chick is getting sleepy


New Chicken Coop

Last Saturday the chicken coop/barn/shed was delivered.  Before delivery we had to cut down low hanging tree limbs off many trees in the area where the building was going, and also above the entry road for the truck to drive.  It was a cold and rainy day on Saturday when the buidling was delivered.

Delivery of barn



After we got the building, we insulated the interior and put up interior walls to cover the insulation, built an interior wall to divide the chicken coop from the rest of the building, put in a door on this interior wall to enter the chicken coop area, and caulked, sealed and painted the interior.

Before insulation & walls



Interior wall going in to separate chicken coop area



Interior door going in



We then put up plastic chick separator mesh to keep the chicks we have raised so far without a mother separated from the hen which has 8 chicks.  We didn't know how the hen would deal with all the additional babies and especially with the guinea keets. 

After putting down straw, heat lamps, feeders and waterers, finally the big moment came last Tuesday evening.  My baby chicks were big enough to live in the chicken coop by themselves.  They were so excited - they ran all around and tested their wings.  They nibbled on straw and ate food from the big feeder.  It was the biggest day of their lives, and they were so happy. 



The momma hen loved the freedom, too!  Her babies were very excited to see the other babies.  At first she tried to control them by keeping them near her, but eventually she let them run near the other babies.  The mesh netting keeps them separate, but they can see each other.  Here one of her chicks gets a free ride on her back. 





1 Leghorn Chick & 5 Guinea Keets

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Today we increased our flock by 1 white Leghorn chick and 5 Guinea keets.  Randy wanted Guinea hens because they are good bug-eaters, and we have ALOT of ticks outside in the summer.  We plan on letting the birds free-range when they are adults.  We got the Guineas and Leghorn from an Amish family - we really didn't want the Leghorn, but they gave it to us for free because it was raised with the Guineas & they didn't want to keep just one chick.  The Guineas and Leghorn chick are larger and more developed than our Bantam and Araucana chicks, but we put them all together so they will get used to each other now.  The Guineas already have feathers; the Leghorn is still a puffball, but has more developed wings than our other chicks.

So, to recap, now we have 5 Guinea keets, 1 Leghorn, 7 Araucanas, and 10 Bantam chicks, plus a Bantam hen with her 8 chicks.  Hopefully in spring we'll have eggs!!  The Araucanas are called Easter Egg chickens, because they lay blue and green eggs - should be interesting.  I was told the Bantams lay brown eggs and the Leghorn has white eggs. 

Here's one of the smaller Guineas (the brown one in the pic) and the white Leghorn chick standing tall.



Here's one of the Guineas standing tall.






We got the barn/chicken coop delivered today, but it needs some work done before it's usable as a chicken coop.  I'll keep you posted on the progress.