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!

Hike in the woods

Spring has finally arrived at Razzberry Corner!  The weather was very nice, and so today I took a hike by myself in the woods.  Come along, it was just a short walk, but still interesting...

Not far from my house, down past the chicken coop and the big pine tree, deep along beside the fields, is a natural spring.  I like to check it out when I start my walks.  It is just amazing how water comes from underground and forms into a stream.  And that stream joins other streams from distant places and they make a little river.

And even cooler than that, there are what I call underground caves here.  The caves are not really caves, as to me real caves are made out of rock, and my caves are formed in hollow areas of dirt and mud, but not rock.  But it's still amazing to see caves underground, where the ground wells up and there's space underground.  This cave goes under the roots of a tree.  I climbed under the roots to see how deep it went.  There are other caves, too, but I only photographed this one.  I have always wanted to discover a cave, so I guess this is one thing on my bucket-list that I can check off.  I felt like a groundhog when I was investigating the caves.

Funny thing was that I saw cat footprints in the mud outside the caves.  I don't know what cat comes down here, evidently one of the stray cats.  There were also coon prints and of course deer hoof prints in the mud.

After the caves I checked out the little white house, which is an empty historic house on the property.  A huge flock of black vultures circled overhead, keeping an eye on me.  They must have a nest nearby, probably in the brown house.  There's another historic house not too far from the white house.  I call it the brown house, and it has no glass in the windows.  I bet the vultures chose the upstairs of the brown house for a nest this year.

The little white house has an outhouse, which I walked by.  It's all falling apart, but is still interesting to see.

I walked down past the little white house in the woods and started up a group of deer.  They bounded away snorting.  The song birds were scratching in the leaves for bugs, making a lot of noise in the dried leaves.  I found the remains of a raccoon.  I don't know what killed it.  I found it's tail and some fur.  The vultures probably cleaned up the rest of it.  Near the raccoon I found some old red bricks.  I wondered about the people who made those bricks, and how they ended up in my woods.  Was there once a house there?

I continued to climb through trees and vines in the deep woods.  I followed deer paths.  A hawk screamed overhead, and a pack of crows called to each other.  Eventually I came upon part of an old hunting stand.  It's all falling down now.

I even found an old broken shell from a box turtle. 

The walk in the woods was very peaceful, but I have chores to do before the day is over.  Thanks for coming along.  Springtime and warmer temps will be here soon and I always do more hikes in the summertime.  Next time I'll check out the brown house and will look for the vulture nest...

The Guinea and the Hawks, the Appletree and the Weed

Today I went out to check the wild asparagus.  I decided to document what I saw along the way.

I have to walk out to the asparagus patch, past the old historic fence that still stands,

Past the wild apple tree.

And past these bizarre large-leafed plants that have taken over the area where my garden used to grow.  There are dozens of them growing wild.  Something, I think the woodchucks, have been eating their leaves.  Any idea what they are?

As I walked, a pair of hawks circled above.  They screamed at me as I photographed them, and then they were gone.

It's an overcast day, but the sky is beautiful to me.

I found a single guinea out by himself in my backyard.  He was deep in guinea thoughts.

It is a peaceful day here at Razzberry Corner.  Can you feel the solitude and quietness in these photos?  It's nice to slow down and be quiet sometimes.

I had a surprise when I got to the asparagus patch, and of course I took photos!

I'll post those photos tomorrow!

I like to keep up the anticipation!

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!

A Day in the ...Garden?

Yesterday was another 90+ degree day here in Maryland.  I spent all day out in the garden weeding.  The ground was so dry it was brittle.  I had to water the garden several times during my weeding so I could pull the weeds out of the earth!

I was out there in the garden so long I listened to an entire book on my iPod - Choke by Stuart Woods.  I've been listening to many Stuart Woods books lately. 

I listen to A LOT of books on my iPod - I work in Washington DC, so I sit in traffic for at least 2 hours a day.  Recently I've been listening to books I download from the local library.  

I got a nice sunburn on my back and shoulders from being outside in the sun all day.  But I love the sun, and enjoyed the heat, so I'm not complaining. 

After a full day of weeding, I'm still not done!  I'll have to try to finish in the evenings this week... 

I harvested quite a bit of green beans.  The Derby Garden bean plants seemed to produce the most beans so far.

The squash, cantaloupes and cucumber have lots of flowers, but only one small squash and a few small cukes were starting to grow. 

A few tomatoes are starting to appear.  The plants look dry.

The carrots are growing fine, but are small. 

It appears a critter has enjoyed most of my sugar snap peas, much to my regret.  They didn't bother the plants much, but ate all the peas!  We're going to have to put a better fence around the garden! 

Possibly it was a rabbit (we've seen one out in front of the house recently) or a woodchuck (Gordita the woodchuck lives in our backyard, and a male woodchuck visits very often).

While I was weeding the garden I dug up these odd, white, soft, seeds.  They appeared to be buried under grass and other weeds in the soft, moist dirt at the edge of the garden.  At first I thought they were some sort of egg because they were soft (like a snake or turtle egg), but they have roots, which make me think they are a seed of some sort.

Any ideas?  I tried to research them online, but had no luck.

I also dug up a little piece of history ~

It's some sort of old iron tool.  It appears to be broken.

This property had a farm on it from the 1700's through the 1900's.  We are always turning up some pieces of history, although we don't always know what they are!

A Woodchuck's Near-Miss

Previously I posted how a woodchuck (aka, groundhog) had been killed in our backyard right near his home.  I thought it must have been done a fox, then I thought maybe it was an owl.  Yesterday another woodchuck came to visit, and he had a bare spot on his back where the hair had been pulled out.  Maybe whatever killed the other woodchuck hurt this one?

Isn't he just so cute?  So fat! And he gets fat from eating clover and grass!  It's always amazed me how vegetarians like the woodchuck can get fat!  And this little man just recently came out of his underground home after hibernating all winter.  He was even fatter last autumn when the hibernation was ready to begin.

He has a flower petal in his hair.  Many trees are flowering now, and little white petals are everywhere.

Yum, clover!  Notice how the left side isn't as fluffy as the rest of him in the above picture.

He was running in the above pic, so it was a little fuzzy.  You can clearly see the bald spot.

At least this woodchuck survived whatever is out there attacking them.