Mr (Miss?) Big Feet

My one and only baby is doing fine and getting bigger and chubbier by the day. He is starting to get that gangly, awkward, "I'm tripping over my feet" teenager look, but in a very cute kind of a way. These photos where taken yesterday.

Wild beauty

I'm on my way out the door to do the final cleaning on our old home and give up the keys. Then it is back to our new home to put some order in the mess of boxes and bags. I'd much rather be outside, though. Everywhere I turn on our 13 acres, I see something new to delight me.
These flowers, beebalm and goldenrod, are growing prolifically along the south edge of the hay field. I love this little piece of land.

Chickens and compost

Mama and baby hunting for bugs in the compost pile. (Are the chickens ever happy that I have temporarily put the compost pile close to the coop!)

Ropes of Pearls

Looks like fairy jewelers were busy at their craft last night...

Wild flower meadow

My new front yard. Almost too pretty to mow.

A Purple Post

Last night was our first night at our new home. Granted, we slept on a mattress in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by stacks of boxes. But it was home! Today we are back at our our old home packing the last of our things. I spent a hour potting herb plants to take to the new place. I'm coming back tomorrow to clean the house and put the yard in order and hopefully pot up a few of my flowers.

In the meantime, I enjoyed my flowers at the old home for one of the last times. Purple in many different shades is in it's splendor.

Lesson on how to Roost for the Night

First you hop up on the feeder...

....then you hop up on the wire cage.....

....then, big jump, up onto the top second shelf of the nesting box...

...then, flap your wings and fly....up! UP! onto the perch!

Mama chicken decided tonight was the night to teach her little one how to roost for night. She repeated the above scenario about 5 times with a multitude of encouraging clucks and coos. Little one tried. He really did try hard.

He hopped up onto the feeder...then on the wire cage, then flapped his wings and got a running start and was able to make it up to the second shelf on the nesting box. It was the distance between the perch and that second shelf that got him. No matter how how hard he flapped his wings, he always fell a few inches short of the perch and would land with a thud on the floor of the coop and would sit there and chirp piteously until with mom's encouragement would try again.

Monica finally decided to have mercy on him and put him to bed under her wing in the nesting box. You could almost hear the sigh of relief from the little chick.

Okay, chickens are very distracting. I just spent an hour watching this all play out. An hour I should have been using to pack. We are doing big part of the move tomorrow, and I am trying to everything I possibly can have in boxes packed before we go to pick up the moving truck tomorrow morning. Tomorrow if all works out, the chickens and I will be spending our first night in our new country home. I feel like a girl about to return home after eight years in a foreign land.

Lone chick

The last lone chick.

We had another chick die last night. We don't know why. It was the same thing that happened to the other one. She looked slightly droopy the evening before, but was eating and drinking and running around with no problem. She hopped up into the nesting box and snuggled up in bed under its mom the evening before with no difficulty. In the morning she was in the nesting box, dead. She was laying there looking like a perfectly cute little taxidermy specimen. No marks, no signs of distress.

One thing I am sure of, is that it isn't lack of sufficient mothering. Monica continues to be an exemplary example of how to be a mother hen. She won't let the other hens near her baby. She pecks at any humans that venture too close. I've let the babies and mom run around the yard all day for the past week and she spend here time scratching up worms and bugs for them and fending off squirrels and rabbits and the neighborhood cat. (The cat hasn't yet ventured very close.)

So we now have one chick left. And when I went out to take these photos, I was convinced he was looking a little droopy himself this evening. I mentioned it Terry, and he said, "Oh, it looks fine. Quite worrying."
"But that's the problem," I countered. "The others looked just fine, too."
Actually, I'm noticing that his crop is swollen and hard. I didn't notice that with the other two. Maybe it is normal and I am imagining things. He has been running around with his mom eating grass and bugs all day--things that should be good for him. Hopefully it is normal.

Regardless, he looks awfully cute.

Early to bed....

Monica takes her babies to bed early. She has had them tucked in for the night by 7pm. We are unfortunately down to two chicks now. Another one died yesterday. Again, I don't know why. I noticed she wasn't quite as energetic as her siblings the evening before, but she was eating and drinking and able to hop over the board in front of the laying box that Monica has claimed as her own, to go to bed for the night. In the morning she was dead. She was my prettiest chick, almost pure yellow. The two remaining chicks seem to be doing just fine, and are looking as cute as ever.

The laying hens out for a hour before dark. If I let them out right before dark, they stay close to the coop. I'm so looking forward to being able to let them free range while I am home once we move out to our new place!

First Summer Harvest

Tonight I pulled the first carrots and beets and picked the first zucchini from the garden.

Lots of home grown veggies with a T-bone steak for dinner. I steamed the carrots just until tender and dressed with butter. The zucchini was sauteed with garlic, basil, onion, mushrooms, and a pepper from a neighbor's garden across the street. The beets were roasted whole, then slipped out the skin and sliced.

Then to top it all off for desert we had vanilla ice cream covered with raspberries fresh from the garden.
The perfect dinner to end a long day of packing.

Spider Web

Tiny, but perfect. This spiderweb is built in the seed head of rush by the river, and is less then 3 inches across.

Out for a Walk

Off to explore the great big wonderful world.

The little ones are more then a week and a half old now. Two days ago Terry decided that he had enough of chickens in the house, and demanded that the chicks and Monica graduate to the coop with the big hens. Despite my protests, he insisted they would fine.

The amazing thing is, they were fine. Monica got big and puffy like she does when she wants to make an impression, and glared at the four laying hens, as if to say, "You touch my babies and you DIE."(Kind of like this.)

The other chickens just huddled in a corner and didn't come near the babies. I think they got the message. Monica is currently ruling the roost out in the coop.

We did have a loss earlier this week. We still don't know exactly what happened. The chicks were outside in the backyard with their mother. All of a sudden there was a bunch of squawking and Monica was pounding on the back door to be let in. But she only had three chicks with her. A search of the backyard finally revealed the fourth chick, curled up in some tall grass. She wasn't visibly hurt, but it was clear there was something wrong with her. She was like a little wilted flower. I tucked her under her mom, but she died an hour or two later. Just prior to the commotion all four chicks were running around like normal.

May God Give His Blessing to this House

May God give his blessing to the house that is here,
God bless this house from roof to floor,
From wall to wall,
From end to end,
from its foundation to its covering.


In the strong name of the Triune God,
all evil be banished, all disturbance cease,
Captive spirits freed,
God's Spirit alone dwell within these walls.


May every going out be in the company of the Holy Spirit,
May every coming home be a welcome into the heart of Christ,
May the Father of all life be the foundation of all life in this home.

We call upon the Sacred Three
To save, shield and surround this house, this home,
This day, this night, and every night.


Grant us Lord, abundance of blessings from heaven,
and substance of life from the richness of the earth,
Direct the longings of our prayer to the fruits of your mercy.


May the angels of light
Live within the wall of this home
And guard it and all who live within.

Amen.

(Adapted from an old Irish blessing and a traditional Catholic blessing for a new home-we prayed it over our new home today).

We closed today, and spent the evening exploring our new house and land and planning how we will make it into a home.

The Pond (Site) at Sunset

Another sneak peak of our new property. As you walk up to the "pond" you can hear the slip-splash of a thousand little frogs as they dive into the murky water. Right now it is basically a mud hole, but with Terry's backhoe and a little bit of work, it should become a lovely little pond. (That is the neighbor's barn and house in the background--we are closing tomorrow, so photos of our new house coming soon!).

Baby Butts

Cuteness is all about being a ball of fluff with yellow feet.

Wild Pink

I don't know the name of this little wild flower, but it looks like it a dianthus...possibly Dianthus armeria? They grow in our lawn and are one of the "weeds" that are taking over my sorely neglected garden. They flowers are tiny and you need to be up close and personal to be able to appreciate their beauty.

Closing Day is Coming.....

We close on our new home in the middle of next week. Then we start moving in for real on July 18th. I am in awe of how this is all working out. Just two months ago, when we looked at this property and made the offer, the possibility that we would end up buying the property seemed slim. It depended on so many things having to fall into place.

Not the least of which, we had to sell our house, which in today's market is no small feat. Well, the house sold two days after the first showing, even before it was ready for showing. What is even more amazing is that we got the price we asked. The contractor's inspection, though it lasted four hours brought up no major concerns, the small list of things they wanted done was not very difficult. I'm still wondering why it took four hours to inspect our house. It isn't very big. Were they going over every little crack and crevice with a magnifying glass? No matter, as long as they didn't find anything major wrong!

Once we had that offer on house, then there was the headache of coordinating closings so that moving out of old homes and into new homes would work out for all three sets of people involved. Our real estate agent has been amazing. This move would have never happened without her close attention to details and her determination to make it happen. I have developed a lot of respect for real estate agents. What a hard job it can be, and they never know if they will end up getting paid for their work or not.

The current owners have been really nice and and allowed us to start moving our things out to the new house several weeks ago, even though we haven't closed yet. This gives us the peace of mind that we will easily be able to be completely out of the Ann Arbor house within the time frame given by the new owner. We are filling up one of the large outbuildings with our things as they clear their things out. Terry is cleaning out the basement and I have already packed up all the kitchen things, except the bare minimum that I need to get by with.

Right now we are using our RV and two trailers to move with, but we have rented a trunk for the week of July 18-24th for the large things. I'm taking a week and half off for the move starting July 18th. We have to be completely out of this house July 31st.

I'm looking forward to making the new house a home setting down roots out in the country.

Chicks in a Bowl

I marvel at how a bird who was raised completely artificially can know instinctively how to be mother. Monica (Mama hen now has a name!), was hatched in incubator, brooded under artificial lights, and never a grown up hen teach her how to forage for food, or save little bits for her. She never had anyone to protect her from danger. She didn't learn how to be a mother from the good example of another bird. She is such a joy to watch with her little chicks, because she just knows what to do. If only being a human parent was came so easily!

Breakfast in a bowl. The babies are enthusiastic eaters. The only problem is, they sit in the food as they eat. And they knock over the water bowl at least 10 times a day. I have to get something else figured out for water.

All five eggs hatched, even the egg that I could never quite tell what was going on in it. That one hatched yesterday afternoon after the rest were done. I could tell right away that something was wrong though. She was so little, half the size of her siblings, her yolk sack hadn't been completely absorbed, and there appeared to be something wrong with legs, she couldn't stand up like the others did. I knew she wasn't going to live very long, and she didn't, she died about 6 hours after she was born. I buried her in the garden by the raspberry patch.

Monica never left the nest once the eggs started to hatch, until after the last little one was born. She also didn't abandon the little one until after she died. (I have heard that many hens will walk away from the weak chick.) I let the chicks out to run around the kitchen this morning for a little while while I was cleaning. As soon as I picked up the broom to sweep up some of the mess, Monica got all excited and attacked the broom. I'm sure she perceived it as a threat to her little ones. I decided to put off sweeping until they were back in the cage. I love how when I give her treats such as cheese or hamburger patties, she doesn't gobble them up herself like she did before she was a mother. Instead she breaks the food into tiny pieces with her beak and scatters on the ground for the chicks.
I also love how she pushes the chicks around with her beak, getting them all tucked under her wings and clucking as she does so. And I love how, when the little ones get startled or frightened, they dive head first into her soft sea of breast feathers, with just their little behinds sticking out.
Looking awfully cute among the basil and tomatoes.

I let them outside for about half an hour this afternoon, and she scratched up food for them as they toddled around after her, tripping and tumbling over every little obstacle. The chicks are so adorably cute I could sit and watch them for hours. I guess I am easily entertained. Chicks by themselves are very entertaining, chicks with a Mama hen are ten times more entertaining.

Learning the ropes of digging for worms.

Snuggle Time

Could anything possibly be cuter?

Cute and fluffy

Two hatched. Two, maybe three to go. And one is red, not yellow. Interesting.

Hello World!

I peeked in on the eggs before going to church this morning. The first egg wasn't that much farther along then it was last night. The other egg with a crack had made no progress at all, and one other egg had started a small crack. I was starting to get worried. Shouldn't egg number one have hatched by now? Terry kept telling me that I should help the chick out. A google search gave me no real information on how long it should take a chick to break free from the shell. The little bit of info I found on hatching problems, said not to help the chick out, but gave no reason other then that you don't want to end up with weak chicks. (Basically survival of the fittest.) Terry argued that it is better to have a weak chick then a dead one. I'm sort of in the middle here. I believe that nature knows best, but I also want all the chicks to survive, and my chickens are more pets then anything else...so what to do?

We went to the early Mass at church as usual and I said an extra prayer for Mama Hen and her babies. When we got back, Hello World! There was a little head sticking out from under Mama Hen. If you look close you can see a few egg shell stuck to the chick's back.
I'm not sure why I am surprised she is yellow. Are all chicks yellow when they first hatch? Buckeyes grow up to be dark red...I was expecting a darker chick.

Mama hen looks like she isn't too sure what to make of this new creature that just appeared under her. I pray that she will be as diligent about taking care of the new chicks as she was about sitting on the eggs. I worry just a little bit because the mothering instinct was supposed to be bred out of her.

Now waiting excitedly and nervously for the next eggs to hatch!

Crinkles

I can't decide which photo I like better--the wood sorrel with dew drops or this crinkly white falling-in-love poppy. I took both photos this morning.

Progress

Egg #1 is making progress. That is a beak tediously pecking away at the shell. One more egg is cracking and there are very definite peeping sounds coming from the eggs. It is so weird to hear the chicks peeping before you can even seen them. We will see what we wake up to in the morning.

Alive and pecking!

Looks like chick # one has decided today will be her birthday! You can see the tiny crack as she starts to peck her way out.

You can hear pecking sounds in three other eggs, but no cracks yet. The fifth egg I never could see clearly what was going on in it, and I don't hear any little sounds coming from it. So I suspect it will be a dud. The sixth egg disappeared last week without a trace.

Hearts and Dew Drops

Blue Bell

Well, not really. It is Jacob's Ladder. It should have a prettier name, don't you think?

Mama Hen's New Home

When I was growing up , I vowed I would never have farm animals in the house when I grew up.

It all started as a little girl, my father would bring goats and sheep into the house so they would be close by when the babies were born. It was common to have a calf in the corner or baby goats romping through the kitchen. One time he even brought in a full grown holstein milk cow. You have to understand, I didn't just grow up in any house. No, we were a family of 14 squeezed into a tiny log cabin. There was barely room for the humans, let alone the herd of goats or flock of sheep or a 900 pound milk cow.

Terry didn't say anything as I got the little cage ready for Mama Hen, but I could see the disapproving look in his face."Look, " I said, as I explained some of my history to him, "It's only a chicken! At least I'm not bringing in a cow."

I don't think he quite got it.

Projected hatch date is July 5th. Mama hen and eggs are in the kitchen so the babies don't get eaten or trampled to death by the big hens when they hatch.

Lilies in the Rain