NYC Visit

Last week Randy and I visited New York City.  I had a blast and thought I'd share some of the photos I took.  I totally was a tourist, snapping photos everywhere.  I may live in the country, but I love the city, any city, every city.  We parked in Times Square and took to the street on foot.

 

I thought the building below was very pretty.  Don't know what it was.

The billboards were amazing!  There are no billboards allowed in Washington DC, so I'm not used to them.

The people...there were so many people!

I call this man "Metal Man".  He was painted silver and looked like a statue.  He was great!  But he wasn't too happy when anyone snapped a photo and didn't put some money in his pail!

7th Ave.  M & M world

Here's a street band.  They were great!

Gotta love NYPD!

Hhere's a hot dog vendor.  I wanted a hot dog, even though I wasn't hungry, just to have a hot dog from the streets of NY!

I'm such a tourist!

Guinea Keets Go Free

Today is the day!!!  Are we ready?

Today is the day that the 12 teenage guinea keets go free to be adult guineas. 

We have a rather large chicken pen, and the keets were raised by the chickens in the chicken pen and in the chicken coops.  The 3 adult guineas, the parents and aunt and uncles of the keets, live free and wild.  And now the keets will be free, too, to live as guineas.

Of course the keets don't understand.

They want to be chickens, living in the confines of the chicken pen and coops.  They have to be shown what it's like to be a free guinea, roaming free over the fields, eating bugs, sleeping in the pine tree.  They have so much to learn, so much a head of them.  And their future begins today.  With one small step out of the chicken pen.

Here we go...

First we had to round up all the guinea keets.  The easiest way to do that was to confine them in the coop.

They didn't like being captured in the coop.  They knew something was up.

We rounded up the adult guineas - we wanted them to see the keets going free, to guide them, to show them what it's like to be a guinea.

We had to find the adult guineas.  There they are, way out in the field.

We rounded them up to the chicken pen area.  Of course it rained this morning and the grass was all wet.  Today was supposed to be mowing day, so the grass is tall, too.

And then we let the small guineas out of the coop into the chicken pen that we used as a mama and baby chicken pen.  It's separate from the main chicken pen.  The keets were cautious about this new area.
The chickens watch the keets intently from their side of the fence.

The adult guineas on the outside (left) watch the keets inside the pen.

And then we let the keets loose to be with the adult guineas.  Of course the keets wanted only to return to the safety of the chicken pen.  The chickens gathered on the inside of the fence, worried about their comrades on the outside.

Hopefully everyone does well as the keets transition to being adult guineas.

In these videos the keets are only thinking of returning to the chicken pen.  It should be an interesting day today! 

Hopefully soon the guinea keets realize they are not chickens, and they start enjoying their freedom.

Today starts a whole new life for our keets!

Black Vulture Baby Update

The other week we went and visited the black vulture baby.  His parents and him live in a little old fallen apart house beside our big old fallen down tobacco barn.  We have several old structures on the property is disrepair.  The vultures love these old buildings.  I like having vultures around, as they assist us in cleaning up the property.  I find it absolutely amazing that vultures make no noise except a hiss and a grunt.  The opposite of the guinea fowl.  The guineas and the vultures all get along nicely, too.

Ok, just to recap - this is what the vulture baby looked like one month before ~ he was tiny (about the size of our hand) and off-white and puffy.  Very fragile-looking.

And here he is now!  He's a big boy.  He's almost the size of an adult vulture.  But he certainly looks weird.  He is getting some black feathers in, thank goodness.  He still has that off-white puff all over him.  He doesn't fly yet.  The parents still feed him.

Both parent vultures were with the baby when we visited.  They both flew away from the home, and they were not happy with our intrusion into their home.  One of the parents flew overhead, watching us closely while we visited their son, and the other took off.

In a couple minutes the second vulture was back.

And he brought re-inforcements.  Another pair of vultures came to assist.  I thought it was amazing the one parent took off and got help from another vulture family.  How sweet is that?  We think the other vulture family lives in another old house on our property.  They probably have their babies there. 

To me it is interesting how vultures live in family units, one male and female raises a family.  They seem to be smart, they run to neighbors when help is needed.  The neighbors immediately come to help.  They are quiet, aren't able to yell at would-be attackers.  All they can do is fly around above.  Silent, beautiful birds.

I hope we have many more vulture babies in the upcoming years.

No More Guinea Eggs

It is with a heavy heart that I say that all Guinea Girl's eggs were killed and eaten a few days ago.

Guinea Girl was sitting on a nest with 15 eggs.  She was quite proud of her soon-to-be babies.  She rarely left her nest.  She would have been a great mother, I believe.  In the beginning of her broodiness, we tried to remove her from her nest, but she fought and fought us to stay on her nest of eggs.  She was willing to risk her life by staying on the nest overnight, despite all the dangers of sitting on the ground overnight.  She didn't care, she was a mama, and that's what mamas do.  They take care of their babies.  Even if their babies are still eggs.  Our guineas know about dangers and monsters at nighttime.  These are the 3 last ones that survived a terrible month of attacks every night.  I believe all 3 of these last guineas were attacked during the month long war on the guineas, but they survived.  I believe this because their feathers were all torn up and they were terrified during the days.  But they are the survivors.

And Guinea Girl was willing to risk it all again for her babies.

Guinea Girl

 We had decided to take Guinea Girl's eggs away from her, even though she was a great mama guinea.  We were going to give them to our broody chicken hens.  We now have 2 broody hens, Charlotte and Bella ~ they are the same 2 hens that raised all our guinea keets from eggs earlier this year.  Those keets are now teenagers/young adults.  And here the same 2 hens are broody again.  It was a sign, and so we were going to take Guinea Girl's eggs away because we didn't think it was safe for her to sit on the ground all night.  Guineas are blind in the dark, and it is very dark in our woods at night.  We were going to take the eggs away last weekend and give them to the hens in the chicken coop.  The hens are safe in the coop - no monsters can get to the chickens. 

Guinea Girl following the white Guinea Boy, her mate

And then one evening last week, before the weekend came, the grey Guinea Boy didn't come home to sleep in the pine tree.  We were worried about him, thinking  he may have been attacked during the day.  We searched for him, didn't find him or any signs of an attack.  Girl Guinea was sitting on her nest that evening.

And then, the next morning, Guinea Girl was eating breakfast with the 2 Guinea Boys up at the house.  What???  Why wasn't she on her eggs?  Where did grey Guinea Boy come from?

We immediately ran outside, crossed the fields and went into the woods where the nest was.

And the eggs were all broken and scrattered about.  None was left alive.

We were happy Guinea Girl survived whatever attacked her overnight.  She easily could have been killed.

But Poor Guinea Girl lost her 15 babies. 

I don't know why the male guinea stayed out all night the night of the attack, or if that even has anything to do with Guinea Girl losing her eggs.  But it was just weird.  Our guineas are creatures of habit, and he broke his habit for some reason.

Now we know, eggs cannot make it in our woods.  We will never let this happen again.  I am very sad because I know those eggs were forming into keets, and I know how adorable keets are.  I expected at least 7 of those 15 eggs would have hatched ~ our success rate with eggs is about 50%.  Sadly, not anymore.

The grey Guinea Boy



Hello, Deer Boys!

The other morning a herd of big boy deer came to visit us!

I apologize for the bad quality of these photos.  They were shot through my kitchen window.  I had the best view of the deer from the kitchen - there were things blocking the view from the other windows.

How many deer do you see in the below photo?

There's 3 - one is walking behind the fence on the lower right.

The boy in the center of the photo appeared to be the herd leader.

Well, Hello! The buck that was walking along the fenceline put his head up.  He's a good-looking buck.

Leader buck is looking around to his left, always on alert, listening, watching.

I was so lucky to have seen all these bucks.  They were gorgeous.

While I watched they tossed their heads around, playing with each other.  It must be strange to grow these heavy horns on your head.  The antlers certainly look heavy all done up in velvet.

Leader buck is looking in my direction.  He wasn't playing with the others, just standing guard.

There were a couple first year bucks with little spikes of antlers, too ~ I don't know how I didn't get a photo of them.  They were running and playing and tossing their little heads around.  They were proud of their little horns. 

Leader buck is really looking around now.

Oh, hello there.  Another buck has appeared on the left.  That's what the leader was looking at.

I caught a picture as the boy up front was tossing his head around.  His eyes are closed.  He looks so peaceful.  Is he smiling?

Everyone is slowly starting to walk away.  We counted over ten male deer in this buck herd.  I didn't get photos of them all, as some were behind bushes, and some were running and the photos came out fuzzy.

Right now the female deer are off raising their adorable little fawns, and the males separate off to form their own herds.  We don't see many buck herds, but we see the groups of females and babies every day now.



I know, the blackberry bushes are growing wild on the fences.  That's another task for another day...

Happy Saturday!

Guinea Update

Our guinea keets that we hatched from eggs are turning into teenage guineas.  They've been integrated with the chicken flock for a while now.  The mama chicken hens no longer are mothers to them.  Just recently we've encouraged them to start sleeping outside the chicken coop in the tree that's inside the chicken pen, so they are still protected from night monsters.  They are starting to make guinea sounds, too, and are losing their baby voices.  Raising keets from eggs has been a great experience for me since I raised their parents, too.

We appear to have 7 lavender (gray colored with white dots), 4 pearl gray (the dark ones), and 1 all white keet.  The dark ones are changing from brown feathers to dark grey, and they are looking rough right now.  They will be beautuful they they are adults.  Right now we don't have any adult pearl gray guineas - I'm so happy we got some eggs that belonged to our pearl gray guineas before they were killed. 

I love the light blue eyes!

Yesterday it was over 100 degrees F outside.  Randy was feeding the birds frozen corn.  We appear to have quite a few birds right now, but most of them are teenage keets and chicks. 

I love how the rooster stands back on the right and lets everyone else eat.

Here are the 2 adult boy guineas.  They are very lonely now.  The White Boy is the leader, but there's not much of a flock, with just 2 of them.  They finally have become friends.

And here's our 1 female adult guinea.  She's broody.  She's sitting on a clutch of 15 eggs.  We've decided to let her hatch out her own keets.  We'll see if she makes it.  It's dangerous for her to sleep alone out in the woods overnight, sitting on the ground, blind.  Guineas are very blind in the dark.  Sometimes we discuss taking half her eggs and giving them to a broody chicken hen, so we know at least half of them may live.  We have heard it's tough for keets and mama guineas in the wild, with fox and owl and coons out there in the woods.

Bella the chicken hen is broody again.  She was the mama to half the guinea keets which are now teenagers.  Bella's always broody.  I guess she likes being a mommy.  She's very hormonal right now.  She would be the bird that we give the guinea eggs to hatch, if we give guinea eggs to anyone.



So we'll see what we decide to do with the additional guinea keets, if they live.

We're taking it one day at a time in this summer heat...

Come Take a Walk in the Woods

Happy Sunday!!

Today is a relaxing Sunday around the house.

We decided, after seeing fat Jack lounging, to take a walk in the woods.  We all could use some exercise.

Jack didn't join us, though.  He preferred to nap.

See you later, Jack!

Bobby, the outside cat, had a bad night last night.  He got locked in the garage.  He was not a happy cat this morning when I found him at 5:30AM.

Bobby started the walk with us, but stopped at the entryway to the house.

He only goes so far into the deep woods.

He knows there's foxes and other monsters out there in the deep forest.

He's a smart cat, that Bobby.

And so it was Just Randy and I on the walk.

We found the 3 adult guineas out in the field.  The Girl Guinea is broody.  She wants babies and is sitting on eggs.  I call her "pregnant", even though birds don't get pregnant, just broody.  But to me it's the equivalent.  So far Girl Guinea leaves her eggs and returns to our house every night with her 2 men to roost in the pine tree.

The male guineas don't know what to do now that their woman sits all day.  They are actually getting along with each other, since they only have each other for company.

Soon enough all the baby guineas will be released and there will be lots of guinea drama.  We have 12 baby guineas - I can't wait till they get to be free with their parents!

Can you make out Girl Guinea sitting behind all the leaves.  I wonder how many eggs she has under her.  She will be sitting for about a month.  This "pregnancy" wasn't in my grand guinea plan.  I planned on releasing all the teenage babies in a few weeks, but if Girl Guinea wont be a part of the festivities, I don't know what to do.  Plus, with the addition of all the young guineas, the 2 adult males may stop protecting Girl Guinea, and she needs their protection while she sits.  She's easy fox prey right now.  Plus, I planned on her teaching the female teenage guineas how to be adult female guineas.  But now she will be busy with her own babies, who will be newborns.  Her "pregnancy" totally wasn't planned and it stresses me out.

Look at the below picture ~ what do you see????

Yeah, lots of high grass.  But in that grass is my green wine bottle collection!  Remember that?  The grass has taken over.  Everything looks different here in the summertime, the grass and weeds, the trees and vines, they totally take over.

Behind all the trees in the picture below is the old fallen over barn.  In the small house (that you cannot see anymore in the trees) is the baby vulture nest!

Yes, we visited the baby vulture today.  I will post photos of him in my next blog post.

(PS - He's adorable!!!)

Below is one of the fields.  Trees have taken over.  A couple years ago there were NO trees in that field.



And this concludes the photos of our walk today.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!