Chicks, Vines, and Guineas

Last I left you a week ago the mother hen, Charlotte, had not accepted the new chicks I gave her.  She hatched 4 of her own, and I bought 6 additional chicks, which she did not want.

Since then we got Charlotte to accept all but 3 of the new chicks.  So, sadly, 3 chicks don't get raised by a mama hen.  It's a sad situation.  The 3 don't eat very much on there own.  They want mama to tell them to eat.  They are separate from Charlotte and her chicks, but they can see Charlotte and the other chicks, and worse, they can hear her clucking to her babies.  But they are the outcasts.  It is truly so sad that she will not accept them.  Charlotte tries to kill them if we add them to her babies. 

This weekend I've been letting Charlotte and her babies outside into the pen, so that the 3 lone chicks have the run of the coop.  That way they don't have to see the other babies or hear the mama that hates them clucking to the other chicks.

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On the same sad note, Charlotte abandoned 3 eggs that did not hatch.  She abandoned them 3 days after her babies hatched.  We had our hands full trying to get Charlotte to accept the new chicks, so we set the 3 eggs aside for a day without any heat.  We assumed they were not viable eggs.  Finally we cracked open the eggs expecting to see that they were just rotten eggs, but, to our horror, we saw they were chicks who were much further behind in the development stage.  They were already dead.  We should have put them in the incubator back when the mother abandoned them.  But now it was too late for them.  How very sad, it broke my heart.

 

Sometimes farm life is sad.  I don't know what else to say.

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On a much different note, I've spent this weekend and last weekend weeding, cutting down brush and bushes, and removing vines.  It's been raining every day here in Maryland/Washington DC/Virginia, and the weeds and vines have taken over.  I fill up the dump truck in the Mule tractor with weeds, vines, trees, brush, and dump it out in the woods.  I must have dumped about 7 loads.  I love the little Mule, it is a handy vehicle for a farm.  Work around the farm never really ends.  When I have a free day, it's always a decision of what will I do today, not what needs to be done.  The list of things that need to be done is too long to keep track of!

I found some poison ivy when I was pulling vines down off the house.  I thought I was very careful not to touch it, I was wearing gloves.  I'm not highly sensitive to poison ivy; I don't catch it just from being near it.  However, when I was pulling it off the house and putting the vines in the Mule, the cut part of the vines must have ran across my arm and deposited it's oil on my arm.  Three days afterwards the worst poison ivy rash I've ever had appeared in a perfect line on my inner right forearm.  It's a line of huge blisters, it looks like a small mountain range on my arm, and it itches like crazy.  I haven't been scratching it and have been putting all sorts of treatments on it, keeping bandages on it so I don't scratch it by mistake or rub it on something.  Five days after it appeared, it's still there, all inflamed and blistery and huge, a mountain range looming across my inner arm .  I also got random poison ivy blisters on various places, one on my arm, a couple on a leg.  They aren't bad because they are just one blister, and they're going away.  I hope the mountain range doesn't leave a huge scar...     

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To attempt to make this a happier post, here's a picture of one of the guineas saying hello to a woodchuck in a field.  Actually, the guinea was telling the woodchuck to leave now if he wanted to live.  The guinea quickly brought backup and they chased the woodchuck away.  our guineas are possessive and demanding birds, and they don't like to share.

This morning two male guineas were chasing each other around, running circles around each other.  They make me laugh, at least.

Happy Sunday.  I hope you have a great week!

Happy Mother's Day

I know it's been a few weeks since I've posted anything here.  

In that time we've integrated the bay chicks into the chicken flock.  They are getting big and are all doing fine.

Some of the new pullets

Our oldest hens and also the 2 roosters are now 3 years and 7 months old.  

Except for Freckles, she's even older, we got her as a hen and have no idea how old she is.  

Freckles

We have a few hens that are a few years younger that we raised and adopted through the past 3 years.  

Bonnie, a former shelter hen

Our egg production has diminished greatly, that's why we got 10 new pullet chicks this year.  It was time for some new life in the coop.  This time we purposely purchased all pullets, so we wouldn't have to deal with a bunch of them turning into roosters.  

I'm hoping the new babies start laying this summer - got got them real early to get a good early start.

Also since I've posted we got a new roof.  Yeah to no more leaks in the back hallway when it rains!

We haven't lost any guineas lately - that's always awesome.  We've seen lots of fox and hawks and heard lots of great horned owls, but the predators have not killed, just come and looked and backed off.  Because I'm such a girl I can't actually kill a fox, but I'll shoot at it's feet and give it a good scare.  Maybe I've scared them away?  Often I see a pair of red-tailed hawks scoping out the baby chickens, they circle above the chicken pen.  But the pen has a roof and they know it, so they just watch the chicks and then fly away.  In their hawk minds they probably dream of a chick escaping from the chicken pen, and they swoop down and get their own young-un's a nice dinner.  But not in real life.  

The guineas love the warm weather.  I'm happy they all survived the winter.

The guineas have been laying eggs in the woods.  Sometimes we find their nests and enjoy a month worth of guinea eggs.  I usually have 1 chicken egg and 1 guinea egg for breakfast.  I don't want the guineas to attempt to raise their own keets, it's certain suicide, so I take their eggs.  Most of the time the eggs disappear before I find them, probably taken by fox or coons overnight.

Benjamin and Brindle kept me company as I walked through the woods this morning.

Also since I've last posted our lawn mower broke.  We need to do something and soon!  The grass is taking over!

Lots more is going on, but I'll save it for the next post. 

Don't want to give you too much information (TMI) in one sitting!

Happy Mother's Day!  Hope you enjoyed these pictures of my Sunday morning.

Hope everyone has a great Sunday today.

Shadow and Jack

We're back online!

We're back!  After the powerful storm hit us overnight on 29Jun12, we lost power and water.  5 days later the power was restored, 3 weeks and 3 days later the phone service and internet service was restored at our house. 

The power was restored on the 4th of July in the morning.  That gave us something to celebrate!  In the afternoon on the 4th the power trucks all came ambling down my dirt driveway.  I ran out and told them power was restored, all was good in the world again.  However, they informed me that our electricity had been routed over power lines that could not hold the load for long, that we had power lines down which serviced our property that had to be repaired.  They wanted to attempt to drive some dirt roads on our property to get to the scene of the downed lines.

I gave them permission to drive on our property and followed them about a mile down the road to the scene.

In no time they had numerous crews out there removing the trees and replacing the electric lines.  They worked until late in the day on the 4th of July in 100 degree temperatures.  No celebrating for them!  One of their trucks got stuck in the mud on our property and they found another way to get out to the scene without driving through our woods.   

In addition to those power lines that were down, the electric and phone cables that directly service just our house were down.  They ran through deep woods and often we lost electric and phones in the past when a branch fell in the woods.  Once the woods even caught on fire from downed power lines.  And so we got new telephone poles with all new power cable.  This time the poles ran beside our driveway, avoiding the deep woods.

previous power lines running thru deep woods

new telephone pole

The phone cable was previously strung up on those same old poles in the deep woods, and eventually, 3 weeks later, new phone cable was run on the new power poles beside the driveway.

My thanks to the dedicated men who work behind the scenes doing thankless jobs like recabling power and phone lines! 

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Both our house and the other house which we rent out sustained much damage from the storm.  Below is a photo of the driveway of the other house after the storm.

A huge tree hit the roof - you can see the roof is buckled and punctured.

Let the house repairs begin!

Wild Asparagus

It's springtime, so yesterday I decided I'd better check the wild asparagus.  If you have asparagus, you know it grows super-fast and needs to be picked before the stalks get too large.

And so, I put on some shorts.

Our asparagus patch is way out back, in the middle of a field.  The field is high with grass, and I wanted to be able to see and remove any ticks that may get on me.  Every day I see deer out in that field; I know they carry deer ticks.  Luckily, I got no ticks on me.  I love my guineas (who eat ticks)!!!

Here I am - almost!  Hi everyone!

Ok, here we go, out into the backyard.  We have to go through that gate and off to the right.  See all the high grass?  We'll walk out of this photo range to the right.

Aww, thanks, Randy.  He's mowed a path through the high grass for us to get to the asparagus patch.  The sun was shining bright, but there are these odd white shadows in this photo below.  I guess it's just the light.  Many people say my historic house and property are haunted...  Could these be ghosts???

Here's the asparagus patch.  Yes, it's just part of the field, covered with grass.  We didn't choose this area, this asparagus has been growing here for many a decade before we came here.  We just found it growing wild.  We also planted some new asparagus in the same area, but it wont be ready to be eaten for many years.

 

Let's look closely.  Right in the center of this photo is an asparagus sprout.

Here's another.

And another.

All in all, there was quite a few asparagus sprouting, but none were ready yet.  A few more good sunny days and they'll be ready for picking.  They grow fast.  I couldn't even find the baby asparagus we planted last year.  The stalks are fine and look like grass.

While I was out in the back fields I couldn't help but notice the iris blooming.  My mother gave us some old dead iris roots.  Well, she thought they were dead.  We planted them all around the fields.  We didn't know if moles or squirrels or woodchucks would eat the roots, but figured we'd try.  Many flowers here are eaten by animals before they have a chance to grow.  But the iris are doing fine - the roots must be too bitter for the wild animal palates.

Out by the asparagus there's a huge active woodchuck hole.

Here's our old horse barn.  We're not using it.  It has a dirt floor, old wooden walls, and a roof that's barely hanging on.  We keep the door open in case any wild animals want to use it for shelter.  Sometimes Jerry, the outside cat, goes in, and once last winter some deer found shelter from the cold here.  Many birds live inside in the roof beams.

The vines just take over every year.  These vines are covering a fence and are moving to a nearby tree.  They need to be cut back again.  When time permits...

And now we're coming back to the house.  Here's the weather vane on the back side of the house.

Happy Easter!

I'll bring you along when I check the asparagus later in the week!