Another hawk attack

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens2 Comments

This time the hawk got a crow! I saw the dogs out in the drainfield sniffing and poking at some dark lump, at first I thought it was just a molehill, but they looked confused by it. I went out to investigate and found a freshly killed crow! Poor thing was beautiful, crows are such lovely, jet black birds. I think the dogs must have chased the hawk away. I took the body away and closed the chickens up in the coop (they were all inside anyway, they must have seen the hawk too). I’ll leave them locked up for a day or two and see if the hawk goes elsewhere. Otherwise I mighthave to see about making a run for the chickens. Seems like we only have hawk problems in the dead of winter when the hawks are getting more creative.

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Somebody ate a chicken

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens3 Comments

..and it wasn’t me!

This morning Barclay was barking at something inside the chicken area, which was unusual. There’s usually a reason for his barking. So I went out to investigate. In the middle of the orchard was one of the buff hens. Something had attacked and killed her, and started eating her but got chased away. From the damage I’m guessing it was one of the neighborhood hawks. I think that I was bothered less by losing a hen, and more by the fact that the hawk didn’t even hardly eat any of her, and by the time I found her she’d been laying out there who knows how long, and there was nothing to do except throw the body in the trash. What a waste 😦

Current count – 5 buff hens, 5 blue/buff hens, 2 blue/buff roos, 1 big blue roo

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Limbo

On By stefrobrtsIn xbox3 Comments

Our present to ourselves this year was a new Xbox 360 – something we have been waiting to get for a long time! It was well past time to retire the old xbox, and we are both videogame junkies given the opportunity – after all, we both grew up with Atari 2600 joysticks in our hands.

The new Xbox has some interesting twists though – the whole ‘Xbox Live’ thing is a new way of thinking about videogames. Being hooked up to the internet all the time, just like the other computers, makes for some interesting abilities old consoles didn’t have. We can watch streaming video over Netflix, or play games against other people far away. Those parts only work so-so, because our rural internet connection is not quite up to spec for intense gaming and streaming, but it works well enough. I decided to jump right in and check out some game demos, and found one I fell in love with immediately and had to download. Limbo.

The game is entirely in black and white. It’s not like any platform game I’ve ever played. It can be described as run, jump, push, pull, with occasional climbing and button pushing. Doesn’t sound very exciting, but the puzzles are incredible – real mind benders. None of the puzzles are the Mario type, where you have to memorize complex maneuvers and practice running the same thing over and over again until you get all your timing right – it’s not nearly as tedious as that! Things happen slower, and most of the time you have time to think before something kills you. Your little runner dies – a lot – and comes back ready for more. It’s just great fun. I was challenged by every puzzle, and delighted when I got through them. 

I can’t get over what an incredible little game this is. It only cost $15 and I got more entertainment value out of it than some games I’ve paid much more for, and that’s pretty unusual.

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Happy Birthday Barclay!

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay4 Comments
 
About three years ago we went to a dog show to meet an American Eskimo breeder, just to talk about maybe thinking about getting a puppy sometime in the future. Instead she introduced us to a friend who had an extra puppy that someone had backed out on, and we ended up putting money down on him. A week or so later we brought home fluffy little Barclay. So it’s been three years of socializing, training, a lot of fun and a bit of hard work. When he was a baby he threw the most terrible tantrum in puppy class and the teacher sat down with us and held him until he gave up! That was just more incentive to keep working with him. He’s turned out to be all the dog I could hope for. He is sweet and gentle with humans, friendly and playful with other dogs, and although he chases the chickens when he can, he doesn’t really want to eat them, just to play! He’s not what I would call obedient, but he comes when I call him, most of the time, relatively quickly – for an eskimo. He makes me laugh all the time. Earlier this month he passed his therapy dog testing and earned his Canine Good Citizen certificate. 
They say everyone gets the dog they deserve, I’m flattered to think I deserve this. 
Happy Birthday, Barclay!
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Pony :)

On By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized1 Comment

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I went over to visit my friend’s mini-horse again. She needed me to do a petsitting visit two days in a row, so I got there early so I could spend some time with her horses. She told me where to find the brushes, and I went back and gave the little girl a good brush all over. She seemed to like it just fine, especially her withers – that made her make a funny face and wiggle her lips 🙂

The next day I got there later, did my petsitting chores, and went back and talked to the pony and gave her a bit of a scratch, but it was getting dark so I had to go. She usually just watches me walk away, but this time she followed me to the gate, then stood there giving me sad eyes. So I went and got a brush and she stood perfectly still in the paddock while I brushed her all over – she really liked it! But then it was really dark and starting to rain so I told her good night and went to put the brushes away while she wandered back to her stall. What a nice little horse! I’m so glad my friend said I was welcome to come by anytime and get a mini-horse fix!

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Rainbow

On By stefrobrtsIn outdoors1 Comment

Driving home in a bit of misty rain, I got to the turnoff for our road and noticed a bit of color on the horizon. It was the end of a rainbow, but the rest of the rainbow wasn’t visible, just a little stub where the trees meet the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it! It was beautiful! I ran inside to get my camera, but it had a hard time picking up the colors against the bright gray sky. With a bit of tweaking I brought the colors out as best as I could. Definitely one of those cases where it’s hard to get the camera to record what you see.

Chicken update

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, chickens4 Comments

My youngest chickens (the group that a friend incubated for me) is 5 months old today. The two boys, unfortunately, are extra and will end up as dinner someday, but not yet, because they are still pretty scrawny.

I sold the two black/buff girls to a friend who has older chickens and hasn’t seen an egg in his coop for over a month. The girls aren’t laying yet, but they will be soon.

That leaves me with my 6 older buff orpington/cochin girls, 2 not-laying-yet 7 month old buff/blue girls, and 3 5 month old buff/blue girls. Oh, and my latest addition, a beautiful Blue Orpington rooster.

I added the blue orpington roo because he became available locally, and I want to breed him to buff orpington hens and get blue/buff orpingtons (my blue/buff girls right now are crossed with cochin, so they have feathered feet which get very muddy – orpingtons have clean feet). For $5 I couldn’t resist him – and he came from a show home – he’s HUGE and gorgeous!

So that’s 14 birds gobbling up the food, and we get an egg every other day from one of the youngest of the buff O girls. I don’t know if the older girls will start laying again someday. We’ll just have to wait and see what spring brings.

Planning for next year, I put in an order with a hatchery for buff orpingtons. I ordered 25 pullets (that’s baby girls) and 25 straight run (that’s a mix of boys and girls, however they come out of the egg). The boys will be raised for food. I felt better about doing it this way, because in big hatcheries they sex the chicks and the boys go right into the dog food bin (you don’t want anymore details than that). This way at least some of the boys will come here and get to run around and grow up. They’ll still end up as dinner, but they’ll get to enjoy their life for a bit first. One lucky boy will get to stay around and have his own flock of hens, because I’m hoping after this I’ll be able to keep a flock of buff O’s along with my separate blue/buff flock, and use the incubator to hatch and raise my own instead of buying from a hatchery.

I also plan to learn to butcher my extra birds for our dinners. Hopefully this doesn’t sound horribly cruel to anyone, but I have good reasons. First of all, because I let my birds hatch and raise chicks, every year I have extra roosters, and that’s a great use for them. Secondly, if I give them away or sell them at auction (like I did last year), they still get eaten, but I don’t know how they are treated until then – at least if I take care of them I know they’ve been treated humanely from start to finish. Third, I will know what they ate and how they were raised, and I think that is better than buying factory farmed chicken from the store. I probably should feel worse about this part of the plan, but I don’t, I actually feel like it’s quite natural. Under those feathers, they are, after all, chicken!

So that is where my flock stands as of today, and my plan for next year. We’ll see how it goes.

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Yesterday it rained

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, farm, jack, navi1 Comment

..and rained and rained and rained. I think it’s the most water I’ve seen in the field for a long time. When I said swale in the front field flooded when it rains, this is what I’m talking about.

I walked around the field a bit to judge what parts actually had standing water, vs what parts might be ok to have livestock on during a deluge. In addition to my miniature horse dreams, I’d still kind of like to have a flock of sheep again someday. They can’t be running around on the wet part of the pasture though!

The swale is not only about 30ft wide, but it all ended up in a 40 x 60 ft pond at the bottom of the field (which was so deep I thought Navi was going to have to swim) by the road. I took the dogs out and they had a great time splashing around and playing fetch in the pond, then we came back up to hang out in the shelter and watch the rain come down.

That roar is the rain on the metal shelter roof. It was LOUD!